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

[HelpMeHelpMyWife]

I'm male, stepping into the lions den.

My wife (51yo) is obese. There have been a few times over the years when I've suggested that she's destined for a mobility scooter or worse and offered her a few tips of how I managed to get rid of 3 stone and generally vastly improve my health. Needless to say it went down very badly indeed and I don't really dare mention it again. (Although I feel it's my duty to. A duty I am now shirking.) I've talked to her mother a couple of times and her mother said she's talked to her but clearly that has not helped either.

Lately she's had bad hip, knee and back pain, so my fear that she's actually damaging herself now. I know from my own experience that with 3 stone less everything became easier.

She does Weight Watchers meetings but that clearly has zero effect.

So what do I do? Mentioning it to her is out but something's got to change or she's essentially going to be handicapped. (In fact I'd argue she already is, she couldn't climb over a fence, for instance.)

I'm half tempted to say something to our teenage daughter in the hope wife will listen to her but that seems a massive thing to put on her. (Perhaps not as massive as a mother on a mobility scooter, or ill.)

On personal note I find the whole thing intensely frustrating. Shouldn't Weightwatchers be pointing out the health risks of being over weight? Or her doctor? When I started getting knee pain and a few other medical early warning signs it was blatantly obvious that losing weight and getting fit was the obvious first step and ten years on the benefits have been obvious. It's not rocket science. (Sorry about the last paragraph, I needed to get that out.)

WTF do I do? Or do I just accept it and try to forget about it?

YABU - "Mind your own business and let her make her own mistakes."

YANBU - "Do something to help which I've suggested in a reply."

Yes, this is true. You can’t force her to do anything.

OP, have you thought about what you’d do if she never lost the weight?

Hate to say it but this ⬆️
sign post her to the Mounjaro jab and find a a way to pay for it between you
I’ve lost 5 stone - 2 stone to go and never felt better.
literally best thing I’ve ever done for myself, my DH he’s so happy I’m physically more healthy and slim now. I bike, walk and have even agreed to go camping 🏕️ this year

DH can’t keep his hands off me and is so happy I can do all the things I couldn’t/wouldn’t before

I need to know exactly how overweight she is because if you're suggesting 3 stone above ideal weight is 'pretty much disabled' and heading for either a wheelchair or the morgue I am going to HOWL!

You sound so smug after your weight loss.

Maybe you put her off being thin 😂

You keep making very generalisations statements about the nature of women. It sounds as if you view us all in a certain way, simply because we are women.

Men are not different to women in terms of our preferred way of communications. I am a woman, and I prefer very direct language.

She knows she's obese.
She knows that to lose weight she needs fewer calories / to burn more calories.
Knowledge isn't the issue.

I knew I was obese and I knew what it would take to change. I just didn't seem capable of making those changes. Then I listened to a series on BBC Sounds by Prof Giles Yeo and it really woke me up to my issue which is mostly food noise. I started WLI and it's absolutely transformed my life. The food noise has pretty much disappeared. I didn't think WLI would be possible for me financially or practically but I discovered that they were.

If you were able to do it from an empathetic position and not from one of telling her what to do, you could try listening to the series and then sharing it with her, and asking if she's thought about WLI.

I know a pp said you still need to control calories but that's so much easier when a) you actually start to feel full and b) you don't have constant food noise.

Yes I do think he will as he will not have a choice. She will be in a wheelchair before long and it is the partner that will have to pick up the flack, all the caring duties will be on him.

Most people who are obese know it.
They know how it affects their mobility and their health.
The thing is the changes required to lose weight and improve their health has to come from the person themselves,when they are mentally ready,no one can make them do it.Sometimes well meaning advice feels painful and hostile.
Tell your wife you love her no matter what and that you will help her in anyway she wants you to and that you want her to be happy and healthy.

Can you suggest you go for a walk somewhere together to get her moving a bit? Does she likes dogs? If so good excuse to get one and go for walks. Take over the cooking and make healthy meals. She also may need hrt as menopause causes weight gain but maybe mention that around other symptoms if she’s getting any I.e. joint pain, hair thinning or night sweats, it may be easier to bring that up without mentioning weight as a symptom, but hrt can help it all

https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/former-fat-families-presenter-reform-6cWFm_2/

I expect your wife is depressed and unhappy. Which isn't a good frame of mind to start losing weight

Your self satisfied smugness about your weight loss in the face of a woman who is just bloody miserable, is frankly sickening

Fgs don't consider counselling as a career

Leave your daughter out of this

The answers here would be very different if you had said your wife was seriously harming her health through smoking, if she was an alcoholic or if she was addicted to drugs.

All you can do is ask her how you can best support her. I would find it hard to stand by and watch someone becoming increasingly obese and losing mobility and their independence if they weren't doing serious anything about.

This is a really good point. I am very tidy and hate things being out of place in our home. However, I had to let so much of that go because in order to workout, meal prep and spend quality time with my children I had bring in extra help for our and also let my standards go a little. Otherwise there just isn’t enough time.

OP, maybe a way to bring this up with your wife is to acknowledge how much she does and either take on some of her tasks (laundry, cleaning, making kids meals, cooking, etc) so she gets an hour or two of time per day to workout.

Maybe you can find a female personal trainer who can come to your house so your wife isn’t having to make time to get to the gym and back.

So the roles will reverse

No shock there!

He was a twat on the show and he clearly is still one now!

This is rude. He should be able to talk about what he’s done to improve his health without being called “smug.” Being healthy requires effort and a lot of pushing yourself to make the right choices. It’s okay to be proud of turning your health around and making good choices and it’s also okay to want your spouse to make healthy choices too.

I’m obese. I’m well aware of it, and the health risks. Once you get to a level of weight the monumental effort of willpower versus all the other shit and grind women carry - housework, life admin, elderly parents, peri/menopause, trying to keep motivated at work etc means that losing weight isn’t as simple as you make it out.

If I even thought my DH was talking behind my back about how to rally the family for an intervention, or to asking for tips on how best to coerce me into losing weight I’d divorce the fucker. Truly. Ask yourself how much of the domestic load you undertake. Does she have free time to relax, walk, get active? Do you shop/cook? Do you enjoy her company without obsessing about what she eats or weighs? Do you even know her? Her hopes, dreams, regrets? Or are you just a domineering running bore?

I pity your wife OP, as you are seemingly unable to answer any questions about what you do to help and support her and to contribute to the family workload. That speaks volumes and might explain why she needs to overeat to cope with her life.

Oh right, didn't realise that you have insider knowledge. So the wife is currently having to lift the op on and off the loo and she'll him into all the replacement surgeries and diabetes appointments. Poor woman, who can blame her for stuffing her face every day.

Its been easier for him to excersise those choices while his wife does more domestically.

RTFT Shes doing all the grunt work domestically

What because she shops for something in batter and shoves it in the oven?

Has she always been overweight, you've written 'over the years'.

I was never particularly overweight, but put on 3.5 stone between the ages of 46 and 48. And realised it was metabolism as well as bad eating, and have since lost it by cutting a lot of crap carbs, and fasting. Is she on HRT? If you feel miserable and are breaking into a sweat walking on a light gradient, you are not going to feel like eating healthily and taking exercise. It is very different for women at this age, so your own experience isn't really relevant. However, she'd feel better even without HRT if she lost some weight. There is an excellent YouTuber called Dr Mindy Pelz who specialises in weight loss advice for women in menopause, she's also written books about it. I think that might work better than talking to her about mobility scooters and future illness, I'm not surprised she's closed her ears to you.

Did you post this on the wrong thread?

No one notices what women do until we dont do it.

The problem here is the words fat and obese . Substituting them for heart disease and diabetes.. both EXACTLY THE SAME LIFE LIMITING CONDITIONS AS OBESITY ! and would anyone we suggesting self help groups like weight watchers that just make money out of people with obesity ?

Thefe are now drugs for obesity. Drugs that will make her able to be healthy. Why on earth would you not suggest it to save your wife’s life ?