Anyone else’s partner make it difficult for you to lose weight?

[EchoGlassheart]

I will say that of course it is my fault that I am fat. I just weighed myself a few days ago and was almost 16 stone!

So this week some great motivation to lose weight, avoided the snacks, stuck to water and according to my Apple Watch. lost close to 800 average calories a day.

However (and not the first time he has done this), just some examples of how he is not helping and possibly intentionally to keep me fat:

• a few times I’ve said I’m going out for a walk or go swimming at the gym and I’ll be guilted to stay in and watch tv with him.

• sometimes he won’t say anything but then he’ll be texting saying ‘be back in an hour’ or send me to the shop to buy him something so then prompting me to get back earlier than I planned.

• he is continually ordering takeaway food

• because he buys me Chinese food, he will then say to me a few days later ‘right your turn for the takeaway’ - which annoys me because I never even asked for takeaway a few nights before. I did enjoy the food but was planning just to use the freezer food. So I’m putting on pound weight and losing currency pounds! It is this crazy cycle and I looked at my bank statement and it was £150 in takeaways in 30 days so combined possibly £300 in takeaways.

• so tonight he said again what do you want from takeaway, I said no I don’t want anything, I had a dominos pizza, 3 slices left so I’ll eat that (I know, that’s not healthy either) but he proceeded to just buy me something anyway - which included a massive spicy chicken pizza, a large portion of chips and 5 fritters, so I’ve probably now had twice the calories tonight as I was planning to have. - he has done that many times too when I’ve said no I’ll have something from the freezer.

I have a part to play in it of course but as you can see he’s not helping and likely sabotaging my plans to lose weight.

I don’t Understand why because he does make digs at my weight a lot, sometimes explicit but mostly just subtle when he is talking about the looks of someone we see on tv or outside and I always get a sense of how he feels about me.

Anyone else find it difficult to lose weight because of partner / family / friends?

Tbh OP it really sounds like he is sabotaging you on purpose. My DP always offers me takeaway etc also if he is having one but if he wants to watch something I just say yeah we will as soon as I've done my workout/got my steps in etc and he waits for me. That's a huge amount of food he's ordered for you as well especially if you said you didn't want anything and had pizza left. Do you feel like he's doing it on purpose?

He makes digs at your weight? He would be digging his suitcase out to go and stay at his mums if that was my partner!

Yeah I think he is, can’t understand why as he always says go back to when I met you when I was about 10 stone.

He doesn't sound very nice. You're worth more.

My DH remains skinny (7 st 7, 5'9) whatever he eats whereas I put on weight at the drop of a hat. He doesn't deliberately make life difficult for me but the cupboard is always full of his crisps, biscuits, knock-off Mars Bars, giant chocolate Swiss rolls from the £1 shop and so on, that he can seemingly chow down on endlessly without gaining weight.

I just have to pretend it isn't there, basically .

He may not gain weight but it's still not healthy to eat all those snacks

i know what you mean. my dh can be a tiny bit like this and since i do 90% of my workout's at home you would think he would see how much effort i'm putting in.
i have a hard time saying no to foods i like and at this stage in my life i only buy foods i enjoy.
but i have a few tricks to suggest for you; meal planning of course is really key financially and for healthier options. my biggest suggestion is washed cut up veggies in a veggie fridge tray and quick thinking. so chinese is fine with cauliflower rice (which is very easy to make, add your cauliflower into a little blender and buzz, drizzle with some water and pop it in the microwave.) looks like rice and has very little taste. again steamed broccolini with chinese works. pizza carb heavy so needs veggies so again you should cut back on the pieces and load up your plate with the cut up veggies.
btw there is a relationship between money issues and food issues.

You told him not to order anything, but he did

Why eat it? Just get the stuff you were going to eat and leave what you didn’t order for him

Then when he says it’s your turn say no, I didn’t want to eat the last one

@AuntTwacky

He may not gain weight but it's still not healthy to eat all those snacks

To be fair, he eats a fair amount of healthy food as well. It's fascinating to watch the eating of someone for whom weight has never been a consideration. He'll have, e.g. two Tesco-version Mars Bars when he gets up, then five Bourbon biscuits mid-morning, then an Uber-healthy type salad of beetroot, lettuce and cucumber for lunch. He really does eat whatever he wants. He doesn't do any gym/body-building exercise, either, but he does walk a lot.

I always wish I could post his photo and a description of his diet whenever you get an 'eat less/move more' idiot on a weight-loss thread.

Your partner is an anchor around your neck, but until you accept 100% of the responsibility for what you put in your mouth, you will not succeed. He can't make you do or eat anything unless you allow it.

You have total control as to the people you have in your life. If he is not a supportive, positive influence then he needs to GO.

Look up "feeders". Men who deliberately encourage their partners to eat too much. It's a form of control.

Sometimes it's a fetish. Sometimes it's about not wanting other men to find you attractive (and therefore keeping in you in a relationship because as far as they're concerned, you won't be able to find a new partner).

Either way, it's controlling.

But ultimately you are in control of what you eat. Next time he presents you with something you've said you don't want, put it straight in the bin right in front of him.

Thanks all, I did say once I was done ‘did you really need to order that much food’ and then we had an argument about it, all I could think is we’ve spent about £170 in Iceland, both a freezer and fridge full and likely that food will last months given how much he orders food. I was told I was being ungrateful - I’d like to think he got the message but doubt it.

I know I should have just not eaten it, but I would hate for him to have spent all that money and then the food be wasted.

but it's still wasted because it's not doing any good where it is now, is it?

You need to tell him that you're bored of takeaways and won't be having any more.

Rather than saying you don't want the takeaway from a fat perspective make it a money one, say I'd planned to cook xx as it's in the fridge anyway and really we should cut down on takeaways, what we save can go towards the energy bill which is going up from x to y.

Wow that's pretty awful OP. My partner does manage to suddenly source my favourite foods when I diet but it just means I get to practice saying no. Let him know you're stopping the takeaways so that includes also buying him one even if he buys you one when you didn't ask for it. He'll adjust.

@EchoGlassheart

Thanks all, I did say once I was done ‘did you really need to order that much food’ and then we had an argument about it, all I could think is we’ve spent about £170 in Iceland, both a freezer and fridge full and likely that food will last months given how much he orders food. I was told I was being ungrateful - I’d like to think he got the message but doubt it.

I know I should have just not eaten it, but I would hate for him to have spent all that money and then the food be wasted.

You are not a bin op.

It's his problem if he wants to waste his money.

Make a meal plan and refuse to eat what he buys.

Get fit and make his fears come true, kick his arse out.

He will push back and ramp it up so you need to be prepared for that.

You may not realise it but your DP is not exempt from the laws of thermodynamics 😂

the reason people say ‘eat less/move more’ (which is just another way of saying energy in vs energy out) is because it is scientifically proven for weight loss but I’m not sure why sharing a picture of your slim partner who eats a lot of calorie dense foods would prove science wrong?

he may eat Mars bars, biscuits and the like but if he is not gaining weight then he is still eating within a maintenance calorie range for his body. He is clearly expending enough energy on a daily basis (through his activity partly and also because men are able to burn more calories than women) to not gain weight.

i could eat two Mars Bars when I woke up and not gain weight - as long as everything else I ate that same day meant I remained at maintenance calories or even a deficit, which means I could actually eat 2 Mars Bars and lose weight.

I had one like that. When I started refusing the manipulation, I caught him sneaking into the kitchen (after I'd refused a massive fry up) literally melting an entire packet of butter into the pan of baked beans I was warming through on the stove.

Guess what his excuse was?

'I'm, um, making them glossy for you'.

Wanker. Was convinced I was like an alleycat on heat and weightloss was a means to hook up with randoms.

If you look more deeply, you might find other signs of distrust and control.