Is the judgement of others ever conducive to weight loss?

[44PumpLane]

Genuine question for you all?

My husband has just gone on about how he happily finds bigger women attractive but not unhealthy women.

That I'm being unhealthy and that I owe him and my children the effort to be healthy.

There was talk about reaching the point of no return, where you are simply so unhealthy you can't come back from it.

What if, in 10 years time, he has some accident and needs to be looked after, he'd be fucked as what if I can't even walk up the stairs by then?

For perspective, I'm 5'5" and 12st12lb.....I am on the cusp of being medically qualified as obese. I'm a size 14.

For the majority of our relationship I've been about 10st-10st7lb ish which is the higher end of the healthy BMI.

Since having twins nearly 7 years ago I have yoyo'd but this is the heaviest I've ever been and I've proba my been this weight for about a year now.

I want to lose weight, I don't know where my motivation has gone. But am I wrong in thinning he is deluded if he thinks his comments are in any way helpful?!

You should tell your friend exactly what you’ve said here. My OH’s dad died when he was a teenager so he’s motivated in the same way and when he’s on my case about my health as I enter the same decade his dad was when he died I know why.

Does it matter if this is coming from a place of mostly concern about your health, or also maybe he doesn’t fancy you as much as you’ve gained weight but this is the kinder way to broach the issue? He’s raised it clumsily but there’s not really a right way to suggest a loved one loses weight and you know best if it comes from a place of kindness, concern, frustration or is he controlling or mean?
The problem with weight loss is that pretty much nothing actually helps in the long run, especially once you’re into obese territory so medically he’s not wrong about risking a point of no return.
Is there anything you think he could do to facilitate you losing some weight, or at least not gaining any more?

We have discussed my husband's anxieties before, I think he would benefit from therapy but he thinks he is taking all necessary steps to mental health already through exercising when he gets stressed. He is a very highly strung person though which will probably do just as much damage to his heart!

I'd like to think I'm not an intellectually challenged person. I know I am carrying more weight than I should be and more weight than I'd like. I do not exercise.......I agree that you can be many shapes and sizes and still be fit when you train, unfortunately that's not me. I have a sedentary desk job and then by the end of the day once that's done and once we have wrangled the kids into bed and it's late I don't have the motivation or energy to head out to the gym.

I feel like I love in a constant state of disruption with the house not being tidy enough, not being clean enough, things not being where they should be, not having enough down time to myself or with my family. I feel like I don't have enough time to cook......I almost feel like I have middle aged burnout!

It's very much an excuse I realise, as food is relatively easy to control when you can afford to make choices, and I am very fortunate that I can afford to food shop in a way that is healthy......but if it was that easy then everyone who wanted to be a healthy weight would be a healthy weight!

I feel like I just need something to spark in me that's not there at the minute. And I don't find conversations like last night helpful. I am aware of my weight, I am aware of potential health implications, and I really just felt like the delivery was off, even if it was out of genuine concern.

I appreciate everyone taking the time to reply and debate, it's interesting to hear others views.

How old are you, OP? I ask because how you've described yourself, your life, your lack of motivation is exactly how I felt when I was in the early throes of peri-menopause. My OH's comments about my health fell on deaf ears. I just didn't want to know what he thought. I already knew I was overweight and I simply didn't care enough to do anything about it. I was early 40s when it started. I'm now 51, on HRT, and rebalancing my hormones has given me more energy - only for me to discover my body now has limitations because of my size.

I think you just didn’t wish to hear it at all op. There was nothing he could say on the subject that you’d have accepted. It’s made you annoyed he approached it and you don’t wish him to discuss it at all. And that’s fine. You need to articulate that to him. It’s a shoot the messenger scenario.

so tell him you are fully aware and the subject is off limits. Because that’s the truth of it, and that’s fine.

@Inkpotlover I'm 41......I feel a very distinct change in myself over the past 2 years. I went to get my hormones checked at the GP about a year ago due to having extreme hot swings after I showered in the morning but all was fine.
I feel that my hair is thinning (it was already very fine), and that I feel more lethargic than I previously used to- but both those could very much be factors of a poor diet and too much UPF.

lightinthebox
How much child care does your husband do? Or housework? It’s easy to complain but is he willing to do more to give you time to exercise? As in regularly commit. Having the energy and willpower isn’t going to happen when you have twins to care for.

My husband is a very active parent and partner, but even so I feel like I do more, I sometimes think he would say the same (ie that he feels he does more)! I sometimes wonder if we are always so busy getting on with stuff that we don't see what the other is doing.
I think we would all agree I carry the mental load however.

An example of this is when I was on holiday with my niece earlier this year for a week, I texted every day to remind him of the kids activities for the day, this was on top of the list I'd left him at home. The one day I forgot, noone at home remembered one of the twins swimming lessons. Even though it happens at the same time/day of the week every week. Frustrating.

But, the flip side of that is that there is absolutely no issue for me to have been on holiday for a week away from my family as my husband just gets on with parenting.

Janieforever

I think you just didn’t wish to hear it at all op. There was nothing he could say on the subject that you’d have accepted. It’s made you annoyed he approached it and you don’t wish him to discuss it at all. And that’s fine. You need to articulate that to him. It’s a shoot the messenger scenario.

so tell him you are fully aware and the subject is off limits. Because that’s the truth of it, and that’s fine.

This is 100% accurate, this is exactly how I feel. The issue is I have already articulated to him that this is how I feel but every so often he still brings it up as something triggers it in him and he needs to bring it up and then in annoyed.

I've told him that I don't find this particular approach helpful, I find it actually the opposite, but I think he can't help himself. 😊

IDK, there's plenty of countries with a culture of fat-shaming (mostly in Asia) and it seems to work there.

A slightly different perspective, OP. I think we all know that the life you lead is likely to catch up with you in perhaps your 60s and 70s. However, yesterday I realised that it is also likely to catch up with your spouse, children and your grandchildren and after a long night of laying awake and worrying, I am almost beside myself this morning.

We are staying with my parents. My mum has been very overweight (and inactive) for my whole life. I have tried to discuss the matter gently with her and she agrees but nothing changes. As she approaches her 70s, this is having enormous consequences for her health and I am genuinely afraid that she will not be with us for that much longer. I have in the last couple of years realised that my dad (fit and healthy and in his 60s), is effectively her carer because of the health and mobility restrictions imposed by her weight. He should be enjoying his retirement and travelling the world but my mum’s mobility issues mean that they (and so he) cannot do this.

This week she fell. My dad was unable to lift her by himself. Indeed, my dad, DH and I together struggled to lift her. I don’t know how much longer my dad can cope with this situation when we are not here to help - we live in a different country. I am genuinely frightened that she will need to go into a home if he cannot safely look after her at home- she is just so, so young for this sort of move. I am very scared about how I am going to look after them or give my dad some respite from so far away. Selfishly, I am not sure how to physically carve out the time to travel to her as regularly as this situation seems to require - my DC are still quite young and I am at work during the week. The support my mum is going to need going forwards is going to come at the expense of my kids. I know we can’t change anything now and we can only work with the situation we have in front of us, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t sad and frustrated that it didn’t need to be this way - that it has arisen at least in part because of the choices my mum has made over the last few decades.

I won’t try and pick apart his language because it’s clear that whatever was said, and how it was said, you do feel shamed. And shame is not helpful.

My dh put on a lot of weight - a slow creep that he didn’t really notice, and I was very concerned for his health too. I felt he should make an effort to eat healthily (he absolutely wasn’t) for the sake of the dc.

His size didn’t affect my attraction to him. Not even slightly. If he had been stable I might not have been as concerned but he was steadily gaining.

He also couldn’t see it, until he finally did and then he couldn’t unsee it. At the time I was struggling to find a way to speak to him about it, or wake him up to it. And I’m glad now that I was tentative because if he had retreated mentally he might have missed the moment of awareness that he had.

Once he decided to lose weight he did and tbh his single mindedness about that has brought its own difficulties too. But I don’t think I have any real power one way or another. I can support him but it’s up to him ultimately.

I'm 41......I feel a very distinct change in myself over the past 2 years. I went to get my hormones checked at the GP about a year ago due to having extreme hot swings after I showered in the morning but all was fine.
I feel that my hair is thinning (it was already very fine), and that I feel more lethargic than I previously used to- but both those could very much be factors of a poor diet and too much UPF.

It sounds like it could be a bit of both. I agree with @Janieforeverthough – if you don't want to discuss it, shut the topic down every time your DH brings it up. But do keep in the back of your mind that it's much harder to get fitter the older you get and the longer you leave it.

Well I can think of an easy way you can loose 12 stone…

Tell him you don’t want to hear any more about it, and if it’s being driven by his anxiety then go to the GP and get some help with that.

It doesn’t appear he’s driven by concern for you but by whether or not he fancies you, and whether or not you will be able to wipe his bum in old age.

I don’t think it’s wrong for a partner to bring up weight, but it needs to come from the right place to be helpful.

@Eyerollingstones thank you for this perspective. It's quite sobering really and something I am concerned about. Also modelling healthy behaviours for my children.

@Charrington is your husband still in the losing weight phase or has be moved to maintaining his loss.

I find that I can be very single minded when in the right frame of mind, but then when I reach my goal it fizzles, so I don't necessarily want to "diet", rather change the way I eat.

I did Fast 800 at the start of lockdown and found it excellent, but didn't continue after my initial successes simply because I made excuses as to why I needed some time "off" (Christmas lasted a month), by which point you've erased the good habits and replaced them with bad again!

So you do have time to exercise? I'm just back from a week's hiking, what did you do for your holiday?

That's what's needed, a lifestyle change. I don't do the gym etc. Some people love it I can't think of anything worse. What I do have is an active life with active friends. So if we go out for lunch we'll cycle there, I'm having a coffee with a friend later, were going a yoga class first and will go for a walk after. I'm away with friends this weekend and we've scheduled in a parkrun, if we have a girls night out it will incorporate some activity, trampolining was the last one.

Personally I don't think exercise for exercise sake will ever be successful. I started running to get fit/slim but I stuck with it because of the social life it brings and being involved with active people opened the door to an active life in many other ways too.

Obviously you get to choose how you spend your time, but it is a choice.

This is so sobering to read. I'm so sorry you and your family are going through this.

I feeldistinct change in myself over the past 2 years. I went to get my hormones checked at the GP about a year ago due to having extreme hot swings after I showered in the morning but all was fine.
I feel that my hair is thinning (it was already very fine), and that I feel more lethargic than I previously used to- but both those could very much be factors of a poor diet and too much UPF.

At 41 hot flushes and thinning hair sounds like peri-menopause OP, it often doesn’t show up in hormone tests because by nature in PM your hormones are swinging about. You are a bit young for it, but not very.

I would go back and see a different GP.

@VimtoPassion So you do have time to exercise? I'm just back from a week's hiking, what did you do for your holiday?

My niece and I went to Disney World. We were on our feet all day every day, power walking from one side of the theme parks to the other having a fab time! We were also enjoying some snacks too which would have no doubt offset the benefit! 😊

I don't enjoy exercise per se, I never have. In my time I've done couch to 5k several times, I used to play netball in my 20's, I occasionally do body balance and have been known to go to the gym or swimming in bouts. When I was much younger I played netball, hockey and tennis. I do enjoy a nice walk but I'm very much a fair weather enjoyer.

If I told my husband I wanted to go to therapy, an evening education class, an exercise class or gym class or out for a walk or to a slimming class I know he would enthusiastically tell me to get myself away. It wouldn't be a problem.....the problem is my own motivation rather than any road blocks being out down.

I have the support at home to do it, we would be able to afford it.....it's just finding whatever needs to be in me to do it.

I had a very similar conversation with my DH in February. I’m 37, 5ft5 and I was 12 st 6 so very similar to you. He said that I owed it to our DC to be be as healthy as I can be and he was/is absolutely right. I do think there is an element of obligation to be healthy to your partner, but I feel as a parent to a young child I have a big obligation to be healthy and at that weight I wasn’t. I’ve lost two stone and I’m exercising more. It’s not about whether DH finds me attractive or how I look in a swimsuit, it’s what the numbers at the GP say. I was getting abnormal blood sugar readings, a pre-existing condition was worsening, IBS was dreadful from eating UPF all day, the list goes on.

There’s no easy way to talk to someone about their weight unfortunately, but I am grateful DH did even though at the time I hated it and didn’t speak to him for days after.

@Twilightstarbright thank you for that perspective also. It's good to hear that you were able to take control like that- well done to you that's honestly excellent.

Exercise is quite a small
component in losing weight. It’s far more about what you eat.

You have hit the nail on the head though with saying it’s a forever change and not a diet.

It really is, but what I have found is the more interested in/committed to exercise (being fit and strong) I am the more I care about what I eat.

It turns out that wanting to fuel my exercise properly and drop some weight so I can perform better is a far stronger motivator than wanting to look better in my jeans (or what others think of my apperance).

I think for me I'm more likely to want to feel better in my skin through weight loss determined by food, the by product of that would be then having more energy to think about exercise.

That's where I am now, but it took me a long time to be motivated to do it. I suggest just keep percolating it in the back of your mind until you're inspired to make changes. It could be just one thing at a time to start and that's fine. But you do need to explain to your DH that you understand where he's coming from but nagging you is having the opposite effect.

Thanks @Inkpotlover that's helpful advice.

Thank you to everyone who has replied, I appreciate the discussion.