To wonder why people don’t look after themselves

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My husband is overweight and has a number of obesity related conditions.

He has been told repeated by doctors that he needs to control his food intake and take better care of himself. He is already on life long medication, and has been for years. He is mid 40s.
He is very worried about his health but he repeatedly falls into his bad habits. His will power lasts a few days and he is eating shit again. He has he doesn’t without thinking. He is making himself and me worried.

Indont understand why he keeps doing this to himself. His response is always, “I will start tomorrow,” but he never does. This (delaying things that are difficult) is a very common trait with him and he got some therapy years ago but it hasn’t worked. He has dozens of self help / procrastination books which has never read.

He is a great husband and father to our two children. I just cannot seem to get through to him. He has a very, very traumatic childhood and he says he slipped into this attitude of putting things over whilst he was at school and its effect him his whole life. He now has a good job, we have a good life and I want it to continue.

You could apply this to their homes. There’s a young couple who had a fridge freezer on their driveway for almost 6 years.

Then others live in a home which similar to a tip

I think the biggest problem is probably that you both think the Obesity crisis has anything to do with willpower.

This really resonates with me. I am very overweight because I don’t exercise and I find enjoyment in eating nice things. I don’t enjoy very much else to be honest.
I both envy, and cannot relate at all to people who value themselves enough to dedicate time and effort to themselves .
Taking care of yourself seems something better, special people do. I genuinely admire people who work hard at being healthy and slim. I don’t feel worth the effort so I carry on as I am. It only affects me after all.
Im not after any sympathy at all , just trying to give another perspective.

Why do you think it takes time and effort to make healthy lifestyle choices? It takes little effort to do a 10 minute walk instead of a two minute drive, or a 10 minute bike ride instead of a five minute drive for local utility journeys. Doing a recreational walk in the countryside for half an hour will boost your mental health. The human body is biologically designed to move. Having a sedentary lifestyle is like a ticking bomb for your health/wellbeing in later years. It takes minimal effort to cook a meat and two veg meal, I do that nearly everyday. Why do you think nice things to eat have to be unenjoyable to eat? Seasoning food properly contributes a lot to the enjoyment of eating it, and no-one has said you can never have an occasional sweet treat. The issue here is not the dullness of nutritious food or the effort required to get on your feet and move, the issue is your perspective does not represent reality.

This shows a complete lack of understanding of addiction. Addictions are actually an illness and addicts experience a lot of stigma and shame from people like you that lack empathy, knowledge and understanding.

OP, it sounds like your husband has developed an unhealthy relationship to adapt to cope with a lot of trauma, which has now become maladaptive. Try to practice empathy and understanding. Has he had any specialist trauma therapy? It's amazing how our traumatic childhood experience can manifest in adulthood.

Alongside this could you explore healthy habits together? I think having an accountability buddy and someone to make it fun makes a big difference when trying to make sustainable change. Good luck!

Because it's easier to scoff shite food and spend all night watching the telly.

This comment epitomises everything that this wrong with society. Judgemental shaming comments that lack knowledge, empathy and understanding. In no way is this helpful or constructive.

Thanks so much for your groundbreaking revelations on food and exercise! Also for letting me know that my ‘ perspective does not represent reality’ !
My post was just honest and actually quite difficult to write. I was only trying to be constructive , give my views and encourage understanding of this problem. Maybe you could try it sometime ?

Classic trauma response the only way you can help him is not to criticise him for his eating et cetera, but to understand .he needs some help with this, not all therapists are good .
maybe time for another

I struggle myself. You don't sound very empathetic. You know why.. you already said he had a traumatic upbringing. Just as some people turn to alcohol or drugs or sex.. he's turned to food. It's a comfort. It's calming. And long term it may be negatively effecting his health but short term it will feel to him like it's helping him.
And it's such a hard addiction to deal with because you can't just go cold turkey. You need to eat food to live. You can't just avoid it. It takes a massive amount of will which is very stressful and draining. If he has a busy life already then it can seem insurmountable. Tiredness is a big factor. It can be so much easier to deal with your impulses when you have energy.. but at the end of the day, tired after work and interacting with kids.. thats when the eating starts because you don't have the energy to resist it. And it is HARD to resist. It's much harder for some people than others. Just because you would find it relatively easy doesn't mean it is for him.
It sounds like he has a lot of good qualities as a person.
At the end of the day everyone has their flaws. It's awful to see someone shorted their lifespan through bad choices. But you do need empathy and understanding. Most people make unhealthy decisions of some type day to day.. and you will have too.
Just keep encouraging him to tackle it but understand it's a long hard road that he will repeatedly slip up on.

I would recommend hypnotherapy. This has cured a lifelong poor relationship with food for me. I use these guys:

clearminds.com/

It's a subscription of £13 per month but I save that in food costs!

I've also 'let myself go' and am very tempted with MJ to get me back into a slimmer way of life..but worry about side effects :(

With drink / drugs / gambling and so on people can live without them .
They can not live without food so it makes it much harder to get into perspective.

This is what I was going to say. If food could be just cut out it would be less of a battle ( for me anyway).

It’s not laziness or selfishness; this man is wounded and doesn’t need the self-righteous comments, so bloody smug!

It’s not about not caring enough, it’s about feeling so overwhelmed that you don’t know how to change behaviours that have been subconsciously developed to deal with trauma or neurodiversity. The more you feel the need to change, the more stress and pressure you feel, so you revert to your unhealthy “coping” behaviours like drinking, over-eating, substance abuse etc. It’s a horrible vicious circle that can feel impossible to get out of.

I’m sorry you feel like this, I hope you know you absolutely are worth it and I hope you find the strength to make even just a couple of changes that might make life easier in the long run.. if you can afford therapy that might be a good starting point ❤️

Addiction is addictive, and can be genetic...
Willpower doesn't even start to cover it.

Cutting some things up makes them look so much more and go further I find, so you use less?

Thanks. I appreciate the kindness. Writing my post made me think about things actually. Putting my thoughts in writing was like saying them out loud. Maybe it could be a first step. Cheers @MumWifeOther ❤️

I had a very traumatic life until around 30. Bad childhood then very abusive relationship. I struggle with my weight and taking care of myself. It isn’t as simple as you may think. His comfort is eating as is mine. Unless he gets some kind of counselling/therapy this will be an ongoing battle for him.

Emotional eating.. It's a thing
Metabolic set-point.. It's a thing

Being told you're obese and need to lose weight by anyone is awful but from the people you love, it's like a stab to the heart, not feeling good enough also fuels the overeating but changing those lifelong habits takes long term specialist support.
As a person who has struggled with my weight all of my adult life, I cannot tell you the cause for every person's overeating but I can tell you that trauma of some kind is in there somewhere, almost every time..

I have a history of disordered eating on the other end of the spectrum. Diagnosis of PTSD and complex trauma. 10+ years of therapy. I wish I didn't have the trauma and wish I could have emerged unscathed but that's not what happened.

Eh not really, can't you read between the lines, she's obviously very worried about him dying, lack of empathy, where did you get that from???

🙄

People can 'not look after themselves' in a lot of ways but it seems that if you are fat, you are judged the most.