To be upset about my Dad offering...

[katykuns]

to sponsor me to lose weight?

I saw him a couple of weeks ago, he lives far away from me, so I see him a couple of times per year. I am very overweight and I have struggled to lose it, but am very slowly losing it since having my daughter in May. Today I received this:

Dear xxxxx,

I hope you won't be offended by this email, but I want to suggest a plan for you that might help you to lose weight. Please remember that I love you whatever happens, because you are very beautiful inside and out and a delightful daughter and mother.

How about if I sponsor you to lose weight? £100 to start the programme and then £100 for every half stone you lose. At the end I will send you and XXX on a holiday somewhere in the sun, so you can relax together and we will look after the children for you?

I have been on a diet that I can stick to.... for the last 4 weeks and have already lost a stone. It is specially designed for people who love food and it is do-able. Basically you eat what you like for 2 days and on the third day you have only 500 - 600 calories. We call it a starve day and it is quite hard to do at first, but you just think, never mind I'll have the take away tomorrow. We eat one slice of toast with a scraping of low fat spread for breakfast. 200 cals lunch at about 2pm, 200 cals tea at about 7pm and a packet of weight watchers crisps or 3 rich tea biscs at bedtime. On the eating days you have to make sure not to binge, but can still eat all the nice foods. You need to think about the calories in what you drink, so on starve days it has to be tea etc.. without milk or diet drinks and on the other days still sensible about drinks.

Please don't be hurt by my suggestion, I know how hard it is to keep weight under control and I'd like to try and help you be fitter and healthier.

Love Dad x

I am now feeling a bit upset and confused as to what to do. I am also having this image that they saw me the other week and remarked on how bad I looked weightwise.
However, I am also very tempted to say yes, as we need money, and I have a feeling that it may actually keep me on 'task'. And then I feel conflicted because I feel I shouldn't take their money, and that I should just lose weight because I want to be fit and healthy.

Basically I am just a fat idiot :/

I can only see that he cares very much about you and doesn't want you to risk your health. My DF has also had 2 heart attacks and it is a bit of a wake up call isn't it?

Can you appreciate they must be quite worried about you therefore want to help and probably deliberated at length over what to say and what to offer etc?

It's coming from a loving place so don't feel offended.

if you don't want it can he sponsor me to lose weight? I'm both fat and skint!

I don't really understand why so many posters think this letter deserves anger.

If the OP was only half a stone overweight I agree it would be incredibly rude (and controlling). But she describes herself as 'very overweight'. I presume her father is deeply worried about her health.

If he'd offered her money to give up smoking would people be so outraged?

OP, I'm sorry the letter was upsetting for you but he clearly loves you. If you think it will help, give it a go. Good luck.

I would follow a healthier diet though. Not the one he's suggested.

I think it's a very kind offer from him, if he knows you want to loose weight but struggle what's he's offering is a massive incentive to help keep you focused and on track, I can see why your feelings might be a bit hurt but he is just trying to be helpful and kind. I'd take him up on it

I don't think you are being unreasonable to be upset, no. I do think though, that the only people who can make suggestions about your health without being incredibly rude are parents, and he couldn't have been more considerate in his intentions. I really think he means well. He doesn't want you to have health complications, he wants you to enjoy your life more, he wants to offer you a positive incentive he is trying to be a positive role model. Although it was a sensitive, and personal message, you can tell how much he loves you and cares about you when reading it. It's really quite sweet. It's just never easy to hear. I think you should admit to him that you initially felt a bit affronted and embarrassed but that you want to take him up on the offer.

fwiw, I've heard great things about that eating plan. I highly recommend you go on youtube and watch the Horizon documentary called 'Eat, fast and live longer'.

Op if you want to come and join us on our motivational Monday support threads. Lots of us struggle with te binge thing but we're all losing weight slowly but surely, as it sounds like you are.

Why dont you write an email back offering to sponsor him to be more sensitive.

Can´t see why he didn´t just tell OP about the diet that he´s on tbh.

Money & a holiday-how fucking patronising.

Sorry, but to me it would feel like "I want you to do this & this is what I´ll give you if you do"

This sounds like something my dad would do. He is the kindest person who ever lived but has absolutely zero tact. I wouldn't accept his offer because he tends to become obsessive about things like this and he would make my life hell (unintentionally) by harping on and on about it until I wanted to sit on him and use my weight to kill him! I would write back with something like "Thanks dad, it's a lovely kind offer and I know it's meant well but I don't think I'll take you up on it."

If you are considering doing it, have a think about how it might affect your relationship - you might feel under scrutiny by him which can be stressful.

I would be hurt, even though I would understand his heart was in the right place. I think that our different social conditioning means that men often don't understand the enormous emotional issues that exist for women around excess weight. How it feels like such an attack to be told that we are overweight. How central food is to many of us as a comfort, prop etc. how scary it is to try and remove that.

By the sounds of it you are (like me and many others), 'sugar sensitive'. That will make a traditional low cal diet impossible for you. You say you become obsessed with food when you diet: of course you bloody do! Your body is crying out for food. It's nothing to do with willpower, or moral fortitude or laziness or any of the other bollocks people think.

I would really recommend looking at Neris and India's Idiot-proof diet. It's low-carb but not impossibly so, you won't feel hungry and you won't have to go without.

He probably heard in the diet club many dieters saying they 've got sponsored by their parents and it changed their lives or heard his friends saying that they have done this to their dcs and made them happy.

If he is in USA i think this is popular there.

We have been in the situation of your Dad with the overweight person being his Dad. He was extremely overweight and despite a helpful GP and supportive family who tried everything he was unable to control his eating. It was sad. At one stage my DH did offer him a holiday which would have required him to loose wieght as he was so overweight and unfit he couldn't fly. So, although it wasn't stated, it was implicit that the offer of the holiday had strings attached. To be honest we didn't really know if it was a good thing to do or not but everyone was quite desperate. My DFIL never managed to loose the wieght and died at a faily young age.
I think you should take the letter in the spirit in which it was written. I think it is very warmly and nicely written. I completely understand that it is upsetting for you as it is not really anyone else's buisness but your own.

If you did agree to your Dad's proposal I am sure he would be absolutely delighted to be 'taken to the cleaners' by you and would see it as money well spent to help you become healthier.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

It amazing how differently everyone sees things isn't it........

While the email from your dad comes across as somewhat clumsy - and to me, the suggested diet doesn't sound very healthy or sustainable - as someone with a very overweight sister who I'm desperately worried about, I do understand where he's coming from.
I can understand why you're upset and it can't be very nice to have your body shape apparently scrutinised by your dad in this way, but he obviously loves you very much and is very worried about your health.

If I had the money, I could see myself, in desperation, writing a similar email and making a similar offer to my sister. I can see how this could be construed as patronising and rude but, over the years, she's made so many attempts to lose weight- and failed - that I would consider anything I could if it would stand a chance of helping her.
She is only 23 years old and, at 5ft 4ins and 19 stones, morbidly obese. Already, she's got a raft of health problems due to her weight, including asthma. She's also been told by her doctor that she may struggle to conceive if and when she wants to start a family. Heart problems run in our family, as well, so an early death is a real concern.

I know that, deep down, she wants to lose weight, and occasionally she lets the "fat and happy" facade slip, gets extremely upset and admits it. Seeing her so unhealthy and miserable, at such a young age, is heartbreaking. I love her and want her to be happy in herself, which she's not. I also don't want to lose her and don't want her to be so unwell, but there's so little I can do.
So please try not to be angry with your dad. He's obviously very worried about you and has come up with a scheme which, though a tad insensitive, he thinks may help. He makes it very clear in his email that how you look isn't the issue, it's your health that he's worried about.

You admit that you need to lose weight, so why not take him up on his offer? I'd insist on doing the diet your own way, but this sounds like a great way to lose weight and make money at the same time. Of course you should lose weight for your own reasons, but is there really a problem with benefitting from this added incentive, as it's been made available to you?
Good luck.

I think its really sweet of your dad. But fraught with dilemmas. Say you spend Christmas together - do you have pudding (oooh look at her she'll never lose weight like that) or skip pudding (oooh what a martyr if only she went on our far superior diet plan she could have pudding)??

I was made a similar but different offer by grandparents - we'll pay you not to go back to work after having DC2 - and turned it down. If felt too much like selling my soul!

Just to add, like other posters I can see why your dad might do this out of desperation. DH's best friend is morbidly obese and at 30 has been told by the doctor that the likelihood of living another 10 years isn't high. That still hasn't sunk in for him and he still hasn't lost weight. I know losing weight when you have a genuine problem with food is so so so hard but from the outside, seeing a person seemingly willingly put their life in danger is so frustrating. I've got to the point with DH's friend where I'm so angry with him that I'm finding it hard to remain friends with him (we used to be quite close). I know that's unfair of me but I can't help it, I feel like any day I'm going to snap and start screaming at him.

Are there any other issues with your father? Do you think he is genuinely trying to help you?

If you feel that it's come from the right place, I would go for it. For every stone that you lose it'll be £200. If you lost say 10 stone (not sure how much you need to lose), that's £2000 plus a holiday.

There was a program a couple of weeks ago (think it may have been Horizon), where the scientist/ Doctor was eating normally one day then fasting on a very low calorie day the next (around 600 cals). He had blood tests taken and apparently some markers for health (can't remember what - perhaps blood sugar, hormones etc) improved very quickly. He also lost weight. It was very interesting. I just had a look on iplayer and can't see it, but perhaps someone else knows what program it was and can link to it.

This diet is healthy - there's been a very recent BBC Horizon programme about it, link here. it has been found that fasting (i.e. eating up to 500cals in a day) on a regular basis can reduce factors leading to heart disease, diabetes, cancer and altzheimers. As a side effect you also lose weight.

I've been doing it for a month and have lost 8lb - it's hard not to be evangelical about it when you've tried to lose weight for years and finally find something that not only works but appears to have other health benefits. The MN thread on it is here.

This seems to be a way of eating that allows you to eat normally and control weight by varying the fast days. The doctor (Michale Mosley) who presented the Horizon programme lost a stone in 8 weeks doing 5:2 (two fast days a week) he is now doing 6:1 to maintain his weight but still get the other benefits fasting brings.

It is worth looking at this if you need to lose weight. I know it sounds cranky and I was when I first heard about it - but I watched the programme and did a bit of research and thought it was worth trying. I am gobsmacked at how easy it has been for me to lose weight and still be able to have and go out for the occasional meal.

The human body is able to respond well to intermittent starvation as long as it is healthy. It's a normal thing for animals to have a big feed one day and to have one or two lean days before another big feed. It's only since agriculture and farming became the norm (not that long ago in human history) that humans have started eating well every day and even then the ability to eat meat, sugar, dense protein and fat every single day is a very very recent thing.

Psychologically though, a starvation type diet can be difficult as it's one thing to go without food if it's just not available at all, it's quite another to walk past a cake shop and ignore it!

Thanks for all of your responses.

I have taken my Dad up on his offer, checked with him he DEFINITELY was up for it and how much I weighed. I also said that I was going to try and do it my way. He has replied and is absolutely fine with it... although obviously trying to plug the diet he is on, but fair enough when its working for him!

I am looking into increasing my exercise and having a more slimming world approach. I think its the best option for me, as it means I keep an eye on what I eat, get healthier alternatives, without becoming obsessive calorie counting.

He does want the best for me, it comes from a good place. I wasn't angry with him, just made me feel a bit of a pathetic loser, and made me quite sad at the thought of him and his partner chatting about it and coming up with the idea. I have kinda swallowed that, and am thinking it would be stupid for me to turn this down!

be as angry as you like with the loathsome, appearance-obsessed loser.

then, think of it this way.

you want to lose weight and you shouldn't want to rush - your baby is very new, you need to do what it takes to survive. if that means weightloss has to wait, it waits.

eating healthily is good for you. not dieting. that's bad. but a healthy, sensible eating plan will both make you feel better and help you to lose weight slowly.

accept the starter funding and the half-stone payments - in fact, get him to pay out your hundred pound sweetener in any month where you have lost any weight at all. it will take ages. stretch it over at least a couple of years if you can.

if your dad asks how he can speed things up, tell him he can pay for the gym membership, spa sessions, and provide babysitting. break it to him now that he and your mother are not having your children while you go on a sex-fest with the o h. you'll enjoy the holiday more if the children are there and you can do sex quietly for a few years like everyone else.

the diet your dad recommends isn't a bad one for people with no dependent babies. it's supposed to extend longevity. but its absolutely no good for you. you must keep your calorie intake steady, and appropriate to your size and activity pattern. aim for energy-building, increased activity, and a slow weight-loss.

alternatively, stop speaking to him. he has the wrong priorities.

katykuns
That is good that you have made a decision. I hope it all goes well, you sound like you have a great attitude.

Slowly and surely does it

I think it's nice but understand why you are upset.

That diet whilst working now isn't very good. Your body needs to be fed, food isn't the enemy. I hate any diet that requires the person to starve yourself. You need fuel, just the right type

Good luck to you OP X