Feeling so alone and sad

[buntingandstarcharts]

I need to discussion anonymously how I am feeling as I feel I have no where else to go with it. So can I blurt this all out and maybe have some wise kind words?

I've always struggled with my weight, I've been a size 10 and a size 20. Every single one of my friends and family are slim, including my husband who I adore, he's kind and suppprtive but all his previous partners have been tiny so I know that's 'his thing'. When I married him I was a nice size 12 but since having our baby I've got fatter and fatter, my bmi is definitely too high, probably in the obese category if I'm honest. I've become more and more self conscious but I've always been quite confident and outgoing and I have felt I've maintained that air of happiness whilst inside feeling guilty and somewhat ashamed and worried of what others might be thinking of me - that I've allowed myself to get bigger again. I'm extremely sensitive about it and have dieted so many times that 'this time' I had decided to be fit and healthy but mainly just to accept my size and practise a bit of 'self love' rather than calorie count and obsessing about the number on the scales and just hope that everyone close to me would support that mentality. There's lots of body positivity around at the moment and I had decided that my yo-yo dieting hadn't worked in the past so I should try and accept myself as I am and maybe in the process lose some weight through positive outlook on food/myself. Who am I kidding?!

However, my worst fears were realised when last night my husband said he was worried about my weight. He said he was less attracted to me and that I should lose weight for health reasons (I am relatively fit albeit much less than I used to be). He was having ice cream because he had been on a bike ride but he said he wouldn't have ice cream if he hadn't. I was mortified, ashamed, sad and feel so down about it. I feel like I need to change now for others and myself too through this push from everyone else, but I am so torn. I want him to feel attracted and proud of me but also was trying to feel confident with how I am. I now feel like I'm not good enough and tbh a bit woe is me. I feel ashamed and my self esteem has been whacked out of me. He wasn't even being mean, just very honest and I'm shocked at how hurt it has made me. He said he was worried I would get sick easier etc. I mentioned this in a chat with my mum this morning and we were laughing in a girl to girl kind of way and I said I should probably go on a diet as my husband had said the above and she said 'ok we will help you too'.

Five minutes later she rang my husband to congratulate him on 'getting through to me' and that they'd been thinking the same. It was so awkward and I felt like a 15 year old child who was having to have some sort of an intervention and everyone had been scheming and planning behind my back. I feel mortified. If my husband, mum and dad have been thinking I need a diet, then god knows how many other people think I look unhealthy and bad. I just feel desperately alone as I feel trapped in a corner. They've literally made me go on a diet for my own good with no real decision of my own. Some may say this was needed/it's good to have support/great to have family that care/a kick up the bum is needed/they're just saying what is obvious. Whilst I know that, I just feel so sad and down in the dumps about my appearance which I've always taken such care with.

I've decided to do the Fast 800 if anyone else is doing it?

OP, my strategy was logging food and hitting a daily steps goal. I started out eating 1750 calories a day, which was still a large deficit because I was so heavy to start with. I tried to be as healthy as I could and eating whole foods rather than processed stuff but I didn’t cut out any food groups and would have a small scoop of ice cream for desert most nights. Every day, I’d try to do 10,000 steps and logging it on my Fitbit was really motivating. It didn’t come off super quickly to begin- the first week I only lost a pound. Then it came off faster although some weeks have been slower than others, especially now as I get closer to goal weight.

I think the thing that really worked for me was that it wasn’t a diet as such- just trying to eat a normal amount and being active. I gained weight through binge eating and over the past few months I have really been able to get it under control in a way that I hadn’t before. If I’d been doing an 800 cal diet, I would definitely have fallen off the wagon and binged.

I don’t know how much you have to lose but it’s definitely doable. The time will pass anyway, whatever you eat. If you don’t change, you’ll be the same or heavier by Christmas but if you do change, you could be at least a couple of stone lighter by then.

I also LOVE this calculator:

www.losertown.org/eats/cal.php

Just pop in how much you plan to eat and it will tell you how long it will take to lose the weight. It’s also great to see the trajectory of the weight loss.

Don’t let your husband sit there eating shit in front of you. Absolutely no way. If they want to treat this like an intervention then make it an intervention. Everybody in

Eh what now? If they don’t need to diet then it is beyond ludicrous to make them as some form of Punishment.

Eh what now? If they don’t need to diet then it is beyond ludicrous to make them as some form of Punishment.

Well true but people get overweight usually through a poor relationship with food and cravings that they find hard to control/comfort eating. To tell someone you love that you don’t find them as attractive and want them to change actually required you to be supportive too. If you tell your partner to lose weight and then sit there wolfing down pizza/cookies in front of them because you happen to be slim and able to get away with it, you’re actually being the opposite of supportive. You hopefully wouldn’t drink in front of someone trying to come off alcohol so why is food any different? I’d say that anyone who tells a family member that they need to lose weight and still brings junk into the house and eats it is bordering on gaslighting and is not helping in the slightest. The least they can do is help to cook healthy meals and stick to eating junk when they are out of the house.

They want to shame the OP and make her feel less than, then yep, they can get onboard too. Healthy eating is for everyone and surely they want to support the OP, no?

And eating healthy doesn’t mean they are depriving themselves of calories btw. It’s possible to cook something like roast chicken with veg and potatoes and eat a large portion of that to fill you up. If you instead say that you fancy a large dominos and expect your partner to be able to just sit there eating a low cal meal then you’re a dick. Not saying at all that OP’s DH is like that but I do have some past experience of unsupportive people (no longer in my life) who would happily tell me I looked like shit and needed to lose weight, yet stocked the cupboards with chocolate and told me that I should be able to resist temptation.

Plus there’s plenty of unhealthy skinny fat people out there. You can have low external fat and yet high visceral fat around your main organs. Far more dangerous long term.

Definitely, justanotherneigh. Nobody needs to eat junk food and eating healthy is good for everyone, regardless of weight. If you want to tell your partner something that you know will hurt them but that you feel is for their own good, you have to walk the walk yourself. Having been obese myself and knowing how hard it is to resist overeating certain foods, no way in hell would I bring them into the house if I lived with someone who I knew was trying to lose weight. Same as I wouldn’t offer fags to someone desperately trying to stop smoking.

I know it must have hurt to hear that OP. I worry so much about my husband's weight. He struggles with it so much but is only 32 and already has high cholesterol. For five years, he's said he'll lose it but he just can't seem to. So while it hurt to hear, I'm sure your husband is worried because I worry about mine so much.

We have changed our diet recently to be more healthy. We are just introducing gradual changes, one per month. So first month, we cut down on sweet things. Then we had healthy lunches only. Then we added in only eating vegetarian food for dinner the next month. Next month we're going to add in couch to 5k. We slip up all the time but don't give up and keep going the next day. Even if it is gradual, I hope it will be a change for life rather than a fad diet that we give up on after a few weeks.

I personally dislike faddy things like low carb or fasting. Great if it works for you, but for our lifestyle, it's just not sustainable, and it requires willpower which my husband just doesn't have.

also it is bs that your husband can't eat shit food in front of you...sorry but it's your responsibility to lose weight and there are always going to be people who eat nice stuff.

Having said that, I do stop myself eating crap in front of my husband because I'm just so desperate by now. He literally has no willpower, he doesn't even realise he's eating sometimes.

also it is bs that your husband can't eat shit food in front of you...sorry but it's your responsibility to lose weight and there are always going to be people who eat nice stuff.

So so many people say that the key to avoiding junk food is to not have it in the house. We’re not talking about forever but during a period when someone is trying to lose weight then deliberately bringing food that is likely to derail them into the house is not on.

Talk of responsibility and self-control is all well and good but it’s not so easy in reality. I knew full well that eating pizza and ice cream would make me fat and I didn’t want to be fat. I still ate them because my brain told me that I needed them. I am still in the process of breaking that habit and I can tell you that if someone had eaten junk food in front of me the first few weeks of my weight loss, I would have given up. Most obese people don’t have a normal relationship to food and pretending that they do in order to blame them for being fat doesn’t help anyone. If you’re the sort of person who can ignore the chocolate cake in front of you because you’d rather be slim, that’s great. I am currently working towards that. But at the start of my journey, that would have been the end of it.

@Shedtheload of course it's not easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it.

I can avoid all junk food, but my husband will just buy it when he's out or eat it at his parents or when he's out with friends.

You can do this OP!

I was a size 20 in Jan and hit a size 14 by June, losing 55pounds. I've maintained since then due to holidays etc but now kickstarting the last 15 pounds I want to loose!!

You can do it but you need to set goals for the week/month. When I first started I concentrated on eating 'just' 2000 cals a day with all my f&v. Then I added in exercise. Then I restricted sugar to after dinner, then reduced to 1800, 1600, 1400 etc as my weight fell. Honestly about 2months in it just became super normal and greasy heavy food now makes me feel so ill.

Oh, OP.

That is totally shit. I can understand your husband having a (genuinely) concerned chat with you, but it is WAY over the line for your mum to have phoned him and discussed you.

I would be livid & mortified at that - have you told them both to never do that again?

Separately: I completely understand your desperation to gain back control & perspective about your weight and self esteem. I've certainly been where you are. I'm 50+ and have 40 years of going up & down the weight spectrum (mainly up 🙁🙁🙁).

I finally realised that I actually needed to fix my mind in order to fix my body. I had no idea of what a 'normal' relationship with food was.

I've been (virtually) meeting with a weight & fitness-focused counsellor for 6 weeks now. I've lost 10lbs but more important, my relationship with food (and myself) has changed beyond recognition. I don't wake up every morning hating myself and swearing that 'today will be the day', and I feel happy and relaxed.

Please look after you, FOR YOU. Tell your well-meaning Mother that her advice isn't needed xx

Hi OP i really feel for you atm, I had a similar experience with my DH eight weeks ago where he said the same thing (minus your mums comments - that would really upset me).

I'm trying to see it as a good thing! I've known for a while that I've gained a lot of weight but did the 'head in the sand' type approach. I've tried many 'diets' that ended in failure, but I've managed to stick with this one purely by remembering how I felt when I had that discussion with my husband.

I'm eight weeks in and down from 231lbs to 207lbs and I already feel SO much better. I kept thinking "oh I'd be there by now if I'd stuck to it in January" but trying to be kind to myself and proud of how far I've come.
Great website @Shedtheload its given me a huge motivation.

I use MFP to log EVERYTHING (I even invested in a food scale, only £10 from Argos) and that's made a huge difference. I follow the CICO approach of 'calories in calories out' and find it sustainable because I'm never hungry. I'll admit it was harder the first week because my body was used to be gorging on food constantly but it got loads easier during the second week.

I usually eat around 1000 calories per day (sometimes over, and sometimes under) and I know this is low but I'm quite inactive atm due to furlough, once I up my activity I'll up the calories. I haven't experienced ANY negative side effects but I'd recommend calculating your BMR (to see how many calories you should be eating) and minus of at least 500 to lose weight.

I wish you all of the luck. Try to remember that although your DH brought it up, you should be doing this for you.

@myfuckingfreezer wow that's a lot of weight loss, good for you!

I'm the same, as we've cut out heavy and greasy food, I've found I don't enjoy it anymore. We got a takeout the other night and I couldn't even eat half. Likewise sweet stuff - I used to eat three or more chocolate bars a day, but now I can get through the day with none. It is so hard at the start but you do get used to it.

@SilverYellow

Hi OP i really feel for you atm, I had a similar experience with my DH eight weeks ago where he said the same thing (minus your mums comments - that would really upset me).

I'm trying to see it as a good thing! I've known for a while that I've gained a lot of weight but did the 'head in the sand' type approach. I've tried many 'diets' that ended in failure, but I've managed to stick with this one purely by remembering how I felt when I had that discussion with my husband.

I'm eight weeks in and down from 231lbs to 207lbs and I already feel SO much better. I kept thinking "oh I'd be there by now if I'd stuck to it in January" but trying to be kind to myself and proud of how far I've come.
Great website @Shedtheload its given me a huge motivation.

I use MFP to log EVERYTHING (I even invested in a food scale, only £10 from Argos) and that's made a huge difference. I follow the CICO approach of 'calories in calories out' and find it sustainable because I'm never hungry. I'll admit it was harder the first week because my body was used to be gorging on food constantly but it got loads easier during the second week.

I usually eat around 1000 calories per day (sometimes over, and sometimes under) and I know this is low but I'm quite inactive atm due to furlough, once I up my activity I'll up the calories. I haven't experienced ANY negative side effects but I'd recommend calculating your BMR (to see how many calories you should be eating) and minus of at least 500 to lose weight.

I wish you all of the luck. Try to remember that although your DH brought it up, you should be doing this for you.

Silver can I just give you a tiny bit of advice in case CICO stops working for you. It’s very common with a CICO diet for your metabolism to decrease alongside your weight loss. So whilst it’s working currently there’s a chance in the future that you might plateau as the calorie restriction required is too low.

If that happens please don’t give up. At that point please, please, please research low carb. Read The Obesity Code and understand the dynamic between insulin and hormones. The wonderful thing about Keto and intermittent fasting is your metabolism doesn’t slow alongside weight loss. So just keep that in mind. While it’s working for you then wonderful! Well done 👊

OP please don't diet! You need to learn to love yourself. Work on getting fit, happy and healthier, but don't diet. In the long term diets make you put on more weight - this is backed up by scientific fact. The yo-yo dieting that slimming clubs thrive on to make money!

I hate the diet culture in this country where your worth is somehow dictated by what the scales say.
Your family might have meant well, but it is not up to them.

Please look up Rebelfit on Facebook. It has helped me immensely. There is so much info on his page about diet culture and how to get yourself out of the negative spiral of dieting and how to change your mindset around food.

Hi @justanotherneighinparadise I appreciate your advice! If it does stop working I'll definitely look into it. I've saved this thread so I can look back on your post if needed! (Hopefully not).

The reason I've gone for CICO is because I struggle if I'm limited to certain foods. I've always planned on slowly upping my calories by 50/100 per week once I'm at my GW so I'm not suddenly going from 1000 to 2000.

I have heard that once you're no longer obese/ overweight it's a lot harder, maybe I'll try Keto once I'm at 164 (healthy weight, but not my goal weight).

Thanks again!!

I’m very angry on your behalf. I think you should make it clear that you feel very let down by your mum.
If you want to lose weight then do it slowly. Cut down in a way you want to. I don’t doubt they want to help but your mum congratulating your husband is really patronising. It would have made me so mad I would have gone and eaten three McDonalds and a bucket of chocolate.

Silver you’re correct. It definitely gets harder the less you have to lose but don’t worry. We can sort it out of you get to that point ♥️

@pickingdaisies thanks I walked in on the chat they were having! I died inside a thousand times. My husband was mortified that my mum had called him and asked me how my mum knew about the diet chat we had had the night before - My mum only knew that DH and I had discussed me going on a diet because I was chatting to her on the phone about the fact that I had decided with my DH to go on a diet. It's all very confusing and very very odd. I know it came from a good place but it made me so embarrassed and cross!!

OP, I so sympathise with what you have said here. Have been in a similar situation.

I think there are a few things to untangle here to help you feel better about yourself.

The first is that your fat is not you. You are not your excess weight. You are a person who is clearly well-loved, well-thought of and wanted. I speak as a fat person who has finally started sorting out her weight and has a long way to go with it, when I say I genuinely believe that loved ones are being caring not judgemental when they express concerns about medically dangerous weight gain. It's not easy, but we can choose to see those interventions as loving, not critical.

Also, I honestly believe you can do what you planned as well as what others are suggesting. Of course you need to start loving yourself right as you are and taking excellent care of yourself. Have a think how that manifests. For me, it was the decision to spend money on four personal training sessions a week. That's a lot of money and time but it's made me feel like I'm worth it. Getting strong and energised and toned has done more for my self esteem than accepting being borderline obese. I don;t accept it. I'm not happy with it. I don't have to be. Nor do you., What you can be happy about, proud of, self confident in is your commitment to getting back to a weight you feel great at.

Your DH needs to be on board with this. If he can afford a bike and all the kit that entails (£££) then you as a family can afford for you to start intensive training. If you tell me he's been riding a rusty old thing and you are broke, then he needs to step up with child care so you get time every day to do some serious exercise. Online, for free, I recommend Yoga by Adriene, Kettlebells by Amy (8 mins of hard sweat, and a kettlebell is only a few pounds) and lots of other body weight HIIT you tube videos. You could also get Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred.

With food, really focus on optimum nutrition as well as portion control. Go for minimum 5 veg, 3 fruit per day, 2L water, plenty of lean protein and small amounts of complex carbs.

Load a pace app to your phone and clock 10k steps a day.
Look for ways to be active as a family. Do buggy-walks with friends during the week and go for hikes as a family with DH carrying your child on his back instead of him going for bike rides alone. Get a child carrier to attach to his bike and go on bike rides together. The extra weight and care he has to take of your DC should make his pace right for you. Make a list with him of family treats and outings that are fun and healthy - a day on a remote beach or wandering around woodlands, exploring castles with DC, building dams and dens. Get a trampoline. Do the garden together. Find ways of making life more physically active together.

Explain to him and your family that crash dieting doesn't work and you have no intention of making yourself ill, so if they want to be supportive, they need to understand it's a long, slow process. He can help by not keeping trigger foods in the house (e.g. I ask DH not to buy ready salted crisps. I can leave other flavours but plain crisps are my weakness. When I buy treats for him and DC I buy stuff I hate - biscuits I'd never eat, ice cream flavours I dislike. And keep healthy treats for you to hand - fresh berries, melon and pineapple, greek yoghurt etc. That makes it easy to stick to your healthy eating plan.

Log your calories with My Fitness Pal or similar. You'll soon find what you are prepared to spend calories on and what isn't worth the bother.
I still have really down days when I wish I'd done this ages ago and berate myself for letting my weight slide so far. But getting fit and super healthy really is a worthwhile, self-loving plan to have. And you will quickly feel better on it than any sort of crash diet or body positive attitude that at heart you have no faith in.

God OP, this broke my heart to read! I suffered with emotional eating and yo-yo weight gain/loss for years. I know all too well the pain and loneliness it brings. I'm in a healthy place and at a healthy weight now, and I'll write up some comprehensive tips that I found helpful later on when I'm at a laptop and not on a fiddly mobile.

@Shedtheload

also it is bs that your husband can't eat shit food in front of you...sorry but it's your responsibility to lose weight and there are always going to be people who eat nice stuff.

So so many people say that the key to avoiding junk food is to not have it in the house. We’re not talking about forever but during a period when someone is trying to lose weight then deliberately bringing food that is likely to derail them into the house is not on.

Talk of responsibility and self-control is all well and good but it’s not so easy in reality. I knew full well that eating pizza and ice cream would make me fat and I didn’t want to be fat. I still ate them because my brain told me that I needed them. I am still in the process of breaking that habit and I can tell you that if someone had eaten junk food in front of me the first few weeks of my weight loss, I would have given up. Most obese people don’t have a normal relationship to food and pretending that they do in order to blame them for being fat doesn’t help anyone. If you’re the sort of person who can ignore the chocolate cake in front of you because you’d rather be slim, that’s great. I am currently working towards that. But at the start of my journey, that would have been the end of it.

I agree. I have every type of snack and sweet food you can find in my cupboards, I just choose not to eat it. If my family decide to, that's up to them.

@HopelessSemantics Fasting and low carb is about the least "faddy" thing you could do regarding a change in diet. Keeping blood sugars low in imperative for losing weight if you are insulin resistant.