To be totally fed up with my dh's attitude to weight loss and fitness?

[Blowin]

My dh is 6ft1 and weighs 15 and a half stone, this puts his bmi at 28.6. For years, he has been going on about losing weight and getting fit, and i have done my best to encourage this. He has over the last couple of years, joined a gym, started a fitness class, and last year bought a bicycle and all the gear with it. All of these things he did for a couple of months, got bored, then gave them up.

This year he has spent over 1k painting and carpeting a room over our garage, putting in a treadmill, and a huge tv, in order to exercise in there. In two months he has gone into it twice, for 20 mins or so each time.

Now, I know a little exercise is better than nothing, and i always facilitate him in his efforts, ie encourage him along, helping him choose a bike, going out for walks with him, asking how gym class is going etc etc, but the thing is, whilst he may be, probably is, a little fitter in the last couple of years due to all this effort, he is still not one pound lighter.

He weighs himself every single morning, not to see if he has lost weight cos he knows he probably hasnt, but in order to satisfy himself that he hasnt put it on. He is constantly saying he would like to lose a stone, (and frankly he really needs to as has a large gut) but he seems to think he can still eat chocolate bars and crisps every day, and have a pile of pints at the weekend, and still lose weight.

I have given up trying to tell him the obvious, ie that if he really wants to lose the weight then he has to combine exercise plus diet, and will have to cut out/down on the crap he eats. He gets extremely annoyed with me if I say anything to him about his eating habits, really defensive and tells me that i am unsupportive of him, and that at least he is not obese (wtf like i should be grateful for that?) So i have given up talking to him about it as obviously it causes him to get all het up and i dont want to have a row about it and turn it into a big issue.

But i am finding it SO hard to bite my tongue and not shout out, FFS, you dont have to spend a fortune to get fit and lose weight, just pick an activity that you can do, and eat less crap for a while. No magic formula. Just some self discipline. But of course i cant say that, i have to keep watching him throw good money after bad on exercise equipment, (his next idea is a personal trainer) and watch every day as he eats the crisp, picnic bars and drinks the fizzy drinks.

Any advice would be appreciated.

why do you have to stand by and watch whilst he throws good money (your money as well as his) away on personal trainers whilst putting crap into his face. who does the shopping in your household and buys it? If its you then just stop - dont buy it and tell him why. He may not be obese now but i assume he isnt yet in his 40's but when he is he will find it all just suddenly piles on and is a pain to shift. Sit down with him. ask him if he really wants to do something about his weight and if he does then work out an eating and exercise plan because you really cannot do one without the other. the fact that he weighs himself every day suggests to me that he has an eating disorder that has to be acknowledged before he can go forward. Good luck - tackling someones eating habits is tough!

Thanks Mummymeister - I do most of the food shopping, and i dont buy the junk, he buys that for himself.

He is nearly 44, but has been overweight for around 12 years now I would say.

I really wouldnt have thought that he has an ED, but i do admit it is quite odd to weigh yourself regularly when you know you are not losing weight. He tells me he does it to make sure he is not gaining weight, the implication being, that if he started to see the pounds rise, that he would rein in the junk. But the thing is he shouldnt be trying to maintain he current weight, he should be trying to lose it cos at 28.6BMI he is not far off from being in the obese category.

It upsets me that i cannot have a rational conversation with him about this without his getting defensive and being accused of being unsupportive and over critical.

Hmmm...maybe the personal trainer wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm not 100% sure exactly what they do other than make you exercise but if they do tackle what a client eats as well as exercise then they could very well tell your DH what you can't, without him becoming defensive. That he's eating crap and needs to stop and start eating healthily. He's more likely to listen to them then he does you.

BMI is a very blunt 'ol tool. At 6 foot 1, and fifteen and a half stone, I would suggest nowhere near obese,not even fat, in the real world. I'm 6 foot 2, and fifteen and a half stone is my ultra fit, been training for months, look pretty poorly weight.

If he has a 'gut ' as the OP says he is overweight and carries it in the worst place.

15 stone at 6 foot one is either fat or very muscular. I doubt the op would be complaining about the latter.

It sounds like there are 2 challenges - one is the actual fact of his weight, but the second and maybe bigger one is his attitude to it. As previous posters have said, he may be carrying some weight, but not lethal amounts, and arguing over it all the time is unlikely to solve the issue but is very likely to cause you lots of stress.

My DH had a similar phase a few years ago, he partied hard, didn't exercise enough to offset it, and spent lots of time angry about his weight and grumpy if I tried to get him to use his very expensive gym membership. We ended up agreeing that this was not fair or helpful to our relationship, and that he either had the choice to (1) eat and exercise however he wanted, but not to spend money on anything he wouldn't commit to for at least 12 weeks, or to complain about his weight (and I wouldn't comment on it either) or (2) commit to a proper exercise plan, see how it went, and I would be as supportive and sensitive as possible. He actually chose option 1, and it helped our relationship a lot - I backed off, he took the time he needed and eventually got back in shape on his own schedule. Looking back now, I realise that DH was indulging partly from stress at work and home, and so taking the pressure away actually started the fixing process, if that makes sense.

Maybe your DH's challenge is also that he hasn't chosen exercises that suit his personality and needs? For example, for my DH the key was joining a mountain biking group and finding guys he enjoyed hanging out with for the social as well as sporty side, for me it is all about running in the park, as I need to get my outdoor fix, while some people have minimal time and would rather put on a quick Insanity workout DVD at home... There are lots of options. Good luck!

There is very, very little - well, nothing - onlookers can do about other people's weight. If he doesn't want to shift the pounds, other people wanting it for him is going to achieve nothing.

I know this probably isn't what you want to hear.

Thanks all, good to hear your opinions, and a relief in a way, as was half expecting loads of people telling me i was bu.

Midnight sadly i think that is the long and the short of it. He has kind of accepted that he has a gut, and doesnt want to lose it enough to actually do whats needed to shift it. As long as he doesnt gain any more he seems to accept the status quo.

It is quite strange really cos in all other ways he takes pride in his appearance. He dresses very well, only buys the best for himself, armani shirts and trousers, well cut suits etc. He likes to look well. Yet it seems is prepared to stay overweight, when really, it would be relatively easy for him to shift a stone.

His brothers are all tall and lean, and he himself used to be tall and lean until he hit his 30's. All he would have to do is give up crisps choc bars and beer for a month or two and he wold do it. But he seems to have no willpower at all in this way.

It worries me too because he is quite like his father who is terribly overweight and has been for around 30 years. FIL never walks anywhere, drives even if its only 100yards away and is totally unable to resist sugary food, butter and chips.

I need to shift a wee bit of weight too, but I hate it when DP mentions it. I always take it as criticism. In fact, sometimes it drives me to eat crap just to spite him. I'm aware this is pretty childish, but I think that weight is just such a sensitive topic.

Unless he's suffering medically due to his weight, I'd say just don't mention it at all. It has to come from him.

He sounds v similar to my DH. It took many many years of talking about losing weight, then he heard from a few people that the Dukan diet works spectacularly, he lost 2.5 stone in 6 months and, amazingly, has kept it off by mostly following Dukan Monday to Thursday now.

I meant to add, maybe he could look into it? It's very much a 'blokes diet'.

This is very familiar to me- DH needs to lose a stone (or thereabouts) and has done for several years, but rarely does anything about it.

Thing is, he was very sporty as a teenager and got used to eating anything he wanted- including always having the last of anything on the table. His mother always let him have it too, because he needed to 'keep his strength up'.

Unfortunately, DH is nearly 40, and does no exercise apart from a round of golf once or twice a month. His parents are both very overweight (although have both now joined the gym) as well. But DH compares himself to other men of his age and says how slim he is compared to them.

He even signed up for the Vertical Rush to spur him into doing some training- but did none, and still completed it.

It's very hard, when you can see your beloved H go the way of his parents, and know that it could be easily sorted. But there is nothing you can do that will make him lose weight- like quitting smoking, they have to want to do it. I too have tried gentle support, encouragement, making sure there's only healthy food and healthy portions available. I recently gave up though, and when DH said he was going to go for a run/ do press-ups and sit-ups, I just said "Yeah yeah. 'Course you will." Which didn't of course, go down very well. It did prompt him to go for a run, but I doubt it will continue.

There was a cartoon picture I saw once (can't find it now), where an overweight, balding man was looking into a mirror and seeing Adonis. I think this is very true!

Oh dear Shodan, sounds very familiar! I guess the other posters are right in that there is nothing I can say or do to change his attitude, and that until he really wants to shift the gut, and is prepared to deprive himself for a while to do it then it wont happen. I think also that my DH is addicted to sugar. I used to eat a lot of sugar and cut it down over the last 18months. I now no longer crave biscuits and chocolate all the time, though i do eat a little choc every day, after dinner, as a treat. He has to have sugar on his cornflakes, great big tablespoons of the stuff, its disgusting really, and just before dinner will eat a chocolate bar whilst he is waiting for me to dish it up. In fact its amazing he isnt huge really, considering the crap he puts away.

It really annoys me that he cant see himself how much better he would look and feel if he lost the weight, and also ate less sugar, as he would have more energy, better digestion etc.

I cannot mention it to him now without him going off on one so i am just going to have to shut up and keep my tohughts to myself. Not easy.

If he is anything like my dh he won't do anything until he is good and ready.I tried nagging, encouragement, didn't work.

Until he realised it was getting hard for him to bend over to do his laces up,that's when he decided. He is now doing 5:2, which he has stuck at and has so far lost a stone.

He has an exercise bike in our spare room and does 25km every night and his stomach has started to shrink

Well, you are spot on that it's the eating habits that need to change - habits, not temporary diet, though a diet can kick-start longer term change. People can become very fit but stay too fat and lose no weight, because they don't change their diet.

He's throwing money away as a diversionary tactic, focusing on the preparation, not the actual 'doing' of getting fit. Is he a dreamer in other ways? (Oh, I could write a novel, change career, run a B+B in Skegness but never doing anything to make it real?). Someone serious about fitness starts the other way around, with activity, builds it up, then buys helpful bits of equipment as and when needed. If that affects your finances, you have every right to demand a stop to it.

A good pair of running shoes and some old jogging bottoms are all that needed to get very fit, flexibly and at his own pace.

A personal trainer would be very expensive and, if he doesn't do the excersie they prescribe in his own time, it's like going to any class and not practising in between, you don't move forwards. Something like that, that involves soeone else assessing his health and proposing changes for clear reasons could be really helpful though. His gym may well offer some one to one sessions (or, if lapsed, could do as a part of a taster membership).

The thing I'd be most concerned about is his potential for heart attack and stroke, with that diet. People can look slim or even be fit but, with a crap diet, be at high risk of heart disease.

He needs to permanently change eating habits. Exercise by itself won't make much difference. Even if he did a good session every day, it only takes a tiny amount of food to offset the calories burned.

I agree that you need to step back from the problem. I am also overweight by about 2 stone, but if my dh does anything that suggests he is trying to control my food/exercise, then I subconsciously rebel and go for the biscuit tin.

I realised this was a problem when I did MFP, lost 6kg in 3.5 weeks, all on the quiet without letting him know. The minute I showed him my new weight, was the minute it all went to pot again.

You might think you are being supportive and encouraging, but your dh may see it as you treating him like a child.

I started doing the 5:2 'diet' in January. My OH really needs to lose a lot of weight. As mine started to fall, he joined me. It works very well for men and the basic idea is eating a restriceted diet of 600kcal 2 days a week and a 'normal' diet the rest of the time.
I think the reason it works well for men who have never dieted is that they only need to think about it 2 days. My OH lost a stone in 3 weeks and still drinks red wine/ has a beer or 3 and eats pretty much what he likes the rest of the time.
The weight loss of course will slow down now as it has for me, but you will find, if you ask around that there are lots of men doing this. It also has many health benefits and the fasting period worked wonders for me by sorting out my insulin spikes. I don't crave sugar anymore. Also has benefits of reducing cholesterol and BP.
It's not actually a weight loss diet, it's to improve many areas of health and the weight loss is a side effect really.
I could go on! But I'll not!

What about things you can together? Like walking, wii fit ( I find it hard to lose weight with pcos and only exercising every day seems to do it - I found the wii was easy for this as I could do it at home - it also weighs you and plots your progress - once my hernia is stitched up I will be back on it :) ). Get a mmembership at a tennis club for spring and summer and go and have rallies in the light evenings. Try and make it pleasant and less lonely maybe.

I'm thinking of the 5:2 diet - it's meant to be anti- cancer as 2 successive days of fasting cause the body to work on cell repair rather than creating new cells.

I agree with the posters who think your dh might be in rebelling mode, reacting badly to your interest and encouragement. A few years ago I did the same thing (dug my heals in when I was encouraged to exercise). I would therefore leave your dh to his own devices for a while, whilst you make the maxium use of the facilities in the exercise room (if he's at all competitive, he might be compelled to see if he can out exercise you).

The problem is, as someone said upthread, it really doesnt matter if he were to exercise every day, he is never going to lose any weight without changing his eating habits.

I think the 5.2 diet would suit him very well actually as i think he could sustain a 2 day fast rather than a constant restriction. i cannot even suggest it to him though as he will just switch off or get irritated.

The problem is, as someone said upthread, it really doesnt matter if he were to exercise every day, he is never going to lose any weight without changing his eating habits.

I think there's a knock on effect - if you exercise regularly it changes your body composition and makes you feel better about yourself, which can be a motivator for changing eating habits.