unsupportive household

CrystalMarie183
CrystalMarie183 Posts: 15 Member
edited November 21 in Getting Started
I have been trying to get my life together. I am so uncomfortable in my own body and have never felt this bad about myself or my life. I weight 300 lbs. and am disgusting. I try to get my husband to make changes with me, but he just doesn't seem to care. Is there others out there that are struggling from lack of support at home? How are you handling it?

Replies

  • Unknown
    Unknown
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  • ISweat4This
    ISweat4This Posts: 653 Member
    You have to do this for you, this is your journey.
  • amtyrell
    amtyrell Posts: 1,447 Member
    Get support here. Strong buildings get support from different sides. Strong people get support from different parts of their lives.
    You CAN do this. Persistence matters more then you know.
  • kittybenn
    kittybenn Posts: 444 Member
    I'm guessing that your success will totally inspire him. Completely agree with people here who are saying it's your life and your body and your responsibility. Go for it and best of luck to you!
  • GlassAngyl
    GlassAngyl Posts: 478 Member
    Try having two families in one home! My brother and his wife and their two boys, my dad, me and my teens. One person to battle with seems like a walk in the park!

    Forget seeking support (though I agree with these other ladies that support isn't jumping on the same diet wagon as you..) and seek compromise. My sister in law hides her junk and sodas in her room. My dad does the same thing. My sister in law learned the hard way (after a blow up from me) that I do NOT approve of sugary cereals and snacks for my teens. What she does with her sons is her business. She tried to tell me it isn't fair my kids see her kid eating candy and don't get any themselves, I assured her that they will get over it. They don't care anyways. They like real food.

    Find food that will keep you full! You can't be tempted if you aren't hungry! A large potato has 284 calories in it. A medium yellow onion has 45 calories in it. 2 tbs sour cream has 46 calories.. some salt.. pepper.. vuala! You won't be hungry for awhile.

    Also.. try this simple trick that worked for me. No bread. No pasta. No rice. No junkfood. No soda. Up your fat and protein.

    Try this for one day. Husband shouldn't complain!

    Breakfast: Two eggs (142c), two bacon(86c), coffee but measure out your creamer. Try to not use sugar. If you like liquid creamer, may I suggest hazelnut? Any will do, but I love hazelnut! Walmart brand is fine. No more than 4 tbs creamer (35x4=140c) less if you can handle less. In fact take a sip each tablespoon and see what you can tolerate for now! (Calories: 366c or less if you cut creamer)

    Snack: 1/4 cup nuts (approx 200c. General online consensus for every nut I looked at) OR two boiled eggs (or fried cooked on zero cal spray) (142c)

    Lunch: 4oz burger patty 80/20 is fine,(209c), with a slice of cheese (60c). Two cups lettuce (20c) with a large tomato split between hubby and you (32 in whole one so 16c each) two tbs of dressing EACH (going to use ranch nutrition here which is 143c per two tbs) To mix it so it seems to stretch further, put in a bowl with a lid and shake. (380c)

    Snack: 1/4 c strawberries berries (23c) sliced.. can prefreaze so they keep longer. A banana (122c), and a cup of almond milk unsweetened (30c). Blend in a blender. Add ice if strawberries are fresh. (175c) or.. have eggs or more nuts..

    Dinner: large chicken breast split in two from package at Walmart..(approx 8 oz each at 374c). Put in the crockpot or oven bake it with a half cup of ragu spaghetti sauce. Any flavor. (80c).. and a 1/4 cup shredded mozerella. (85c)

    Small Baked potato (156c) and two tbs sour cream (46c)

    Kale..spinach.. collards.. mustard greens.. your call. 1cup (60c) -(720c for dinner)

    Total for day? Approximately 1785c for the entire day. That should be close to a lb a week weight loss for you if you stick to about that many calories a day. Add me for more ideas.
  • geltner1
    geltner1 Posts: 85 Member
    You've gotten some wise comments. I've enjoyed reading them and I wish you luck. It's one meal at a time!
  • lgrix
    lgrix Posts: 160 Member
    No matter how supportive are or not, it still comes down to you and the choices you make. Set a good example and he may change his ways also. Good luck
  • GlassAngyl
    GlassAngyl Posts: 478 Member
    Who cooks in your home? You or your husband or both?

    If you cook, look up low calorie recipes and start shopping for that. Cook just enough so that the only "extra helping" is veggies.

    If he cooks... Offer to take some days.

    If you both cook, choose healthy ideas on the days you cook. One way or another, if you are in charge in any fashion of the shopping and cooking, you hold the power to what comes into the house.
  • PowerliftingMom
    PowerliftingMom Posts: 430 Member
    I have been very fortunate that my hubby has been 100% supportive of me despite being overweight himself. My weight loss journey began in 2014 and in 2015 I started training to become a powerlifter. He's been supportive with that as well. Maybe once you start losing weight and getting healthier your hubby will want to join you in your journey. Whatever you do, DO NOT delay your weight loss like I did. I lived a very unhealthy life for 30 years and wish I had done this years ago!
  • shaunshaikh
    shaunshaikh Posts: 616 Member
    I have to echo what everybody else has said. You can't use him or anybody else as an excuse. YOU have to put the work in to benefit YOU. if you're going to lose the weight it's going to take a long term commitment and you need to be honest with yourself that it's nobody else's responsibility but your own to stick to it.

    I'm saying this from experience as someone who used my family as my excuse for gaining weight, because of what we ate or how I couldn't work out. It was bull kittens and I had to finally accept it was me who got things this way and it had to be me to reverse it.

    Good luck!
  • cebreisch
    cebreisch Posts: 1,340 Member
    Well, to tell you the truth, this is your journey, not his. YES, it would be helpful if he were on board, but this is the one thing that proves the saying, “if it is to be, it’s up to me.”

    When I started, I was 376 pounds. My husband had about 30 pounds he wanted to lose. Ugh. I “trudged” along for about 6-8 months before he finally decided to start up logging on MFP and doing P90X.

    He and my kids still had fast food and other goodies that were not food journal friendly. SO, I started keeping some of my things (like yogurt, hard boiled eggs, light string cheese, water bottles, etc) in the dorm fridge we have in the laundry room.

    I also put together a “snack box” that had snack bags of pretzels, Peanut butter crackers, protein/fiber bars - things that were about 100-150 calories. This way, I had a “safe place” to go get something to eat and not get tempted by whatever the others had in the house.

    I have always resented that I had to work harder to lose weight than “everybody else” because I have a hormone imbalance that impedes my attempts to lose weight. I recently found that a friend of the family who has been a type 1 diabetic since birth always resented his diagnosis too - when he turned 21, he couldn’t go out drinking “like everybody else”.

    Point is - everybody has their own difficulties to overcome. Do your best to make peace with whatever you have to do to keep on track. You can hope that the husband will jump on this bandwagon, but realize his path is his, and the weight loss bandwagon may not appear on his path for some time.
  • warrenlightyear
    warrenlightyear Posts: 18 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    It's much easier to change when your family members are supportive, but please don't wait for your husband before you begin to make changes on your own account. Your health is something you can never get back if you lose it. I lost weight previously and gained it back because I found it difficult to resist my husband constantly eating my favorite foods in front of me. Now I'm diabetic - and will be at high risk of serious complications for the rest of my life - and this time my husband is being extremely supportive, since the sight of me being very ill in the hospital frightened him. He has said that if he could go back in time and talk to himself, he would have done everything possible to help me stick to my changes before it was too late and I had a permanent, lifelong illness. But the truth is that it was my body and my health all along - it was up to me to ask for what I wanted and to stick to my guns.

    My rules now are that he has his junk foods in a place where I don't have to mess with them, he doesn't eat in front of me unless I am also eating, he doesn't offer me food, and I don't cook food for him which I can't eat. We do go out for meals but there are certain meals which are never going to be options for me, such as pizza and donuts - so if he wants these things, he can have them when I'm not around. In addition, if I need exercise, it's going to happen with zero complaining from him. If he's in the way of the space I need, he moves, and if my timing is inconvenient, he can keep it to himself.

    I'm making this sound harsh, but it's really not - he's an excellent, loving husband who has been very supportive - but he did have to learn some new habits, mostly about complaining and subtle forms of sabotage. Sometimes we are doing something together and I need to exercise. If he complains every time, it puts a serious pressure on me not to do the right thing. When I pointed this out to him, he was more than happy to work on it. And now that he sees the results, he's starting to be jealous of me being more fit than he is, and has recently started working out too. Do what you need to do, and maybe your husband will decide eventually that he wants to join you. But the main thing is, get it done! And if he tries to stand in your way, you tell him that you are going to lose the weight with or without his help and he needs to cut it out.

    I completely agree here. My wife started on her journey at the first of the year. I want able to because I had to have another back surgery. So there were a lot of things I couldn't do. But there are also things that I could have done and didn't. I don't have a good reason why. I am positive that I was not trying to sabotage her. Ultimately she decided that this was a priority for her and she's killing it. All in she's lost over 115 pounds in the last year. And it's because she decided that it was there most important thing for her. That meant I had to take care of the three kids on my own more so she could get her three hours a day in at the gym.

    I stayed on my journey about two months ago. My wife is my inspiration and motivation for me now.

    At this point I feel bad that I wasn't more supportive of her in the early time.

    I say all of this because your husband might surprise you if you were to sit down and talk to him about it. I know that I would have done more if I knew. As a guy I can say that I was just stupid/blind or whatever you want to call it. But it was not intentional.
  • DeniseWilson43
    DeniseWilson43 Posts: 87 Member
    I do , but I got to point I don't care, I don't need him or his support I need my sanity. I plan live a lot longer and healthier them him and I kids think about. It's his Lost not mine , Lost 23 pds so far, do it for your self girly Denis
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    CrystalMarie183 wrote: »
    I have been trying to get my life together. I am so uncomfortable in my own body and have never felt this bad about myself or my life. I weight 300 lbs. and am disgusting. I try to get my husband to make changes with me, but he just doesn't seem to care. Is there others out there that are struggling from lack of support at home? How are you handling it?

    Not wanting to make a change =/= not being supportive. You can't just expect people to change things just because you have made that decision.

    I made changes to my the way I was living my life due to some really bad blood work and whatnot...my wife didn't make those changes with me. She didn't really start getting back into fitness and whatnot until I was pretty much in maintenance...about 8-9 months after I started.

    Her not wanting to go to the gym never stopped me from going to the gym. Eventually she did come around...she is a former collegiate athlete and she saw how well I was doing with my fitness and I think she got a little jealous..
  • sytchequeen
    sytchequeen Posts: 526 Member
    It's not a problem I have, so I'm not really qualified to comment, however.. there is a big difference between not being interested in joining in and being deliberately awkward and sabotaging your efforts. You just do your thing, for you, and if he jumps on board later then great!
  • Fyreside
    Fyreside Posts: 444 Member
    You're definitely not alone Crystalmarie, I'm surrounded by people who are either happily unhealthy or doing the whole talking about doing something then laughing about being too lazy thing. But as many above have suggested, we just have to press on and get what we want out of life. I'm really glad to have found this community because they seem really positive.
  • katsheare
    katsheare Posts: 1,025 Member
    When I started my first fitness journey, I was talking about it at home for a couple weeks, what methods sounded realistic and proven (MFP/NHS weight loss plan) and which sounded less scientifically sound, whether I actually WOULD lose any weight (I honestly didn't think I would. Ha!) and what it might entail. All of this meant that by the time I started logging everything, my partner knew this was going to be happening. We split the meal prep between us, and I showed him the changes I was making (cooking with less oil or water, what an actual portion of rice looks like, etc). He was under no obligation to follow along, but knew that if he didn't, we wouldn't eat the same thing. For him, there was vastly more value in sharing meals and experiences than in not changing.

    As so many have said, you can only choose for you. And as you go through this process toward a healthier, fitter you, you will adapt and learn. You can't help it - it's the outcome of experience. Be open to allowing your husband to adapt and learn as well. @warrenlightyear 's story is an excellent example of an OH learning from experience.

    You're not doing this alone. There are, what, two dozen of us on this forum alone who have your back. Being the only person in your home doing this just means you are a trailblazer there. And please, please make sure that if your husband is doing things that make your work harder - offering bites, insisting on going out for pizza, hiding your keys when you're trying to get to the gym, whatever it may be - talk to him about it. Give him the chance to not actively obstruct. But don't expect him to know what affects it has on you unless you talk to him about it. And even if he doesn't change, don't let that derail you. You can do this.
  • Sarahb29
    Sarahb29 Posts: 952 Member
    I was also 300lbs at one time, 308 actually. My husband is a little chubby but no where near where I am, he's about 180 or so. We have completely different meals sometimes, or if I'm making tri tip we share that and have different sides. He might make ramen and put steak in the ramen, and I'll have mine with broccoli.

    I have a ways to go but I'm making progress, 30lbs down. If you want to make the changes for yourself, go for it! I get a lot of ideas from Pinterest and Instagram. My Instagram feed is nothing but keto/low carb meals, progress pics etc.
  • TalaNrys
    TalaNrys Posts: 28 Member
    I agree with what everyone has said, there is a huge difference between him actively participating and just being supportive.
    My husband is overweight too, not by a lot, maybe 40 or so pounds, and so we've talked a lot about losing weight, and I've been a chronic starter in weight loss since we've been together. He hasn't actively participated with me, but he doesn't complain if I make a healthy meal for dinner, though for example, if I make spaghetti, I'll eat mine with spaghetti squash, and make him pasta if he wants. I do the majority of the cooking in our family and we live with my mom still so that's a challenge in and of itself. He hasn't complained about my slight changes in cooking, like using ground turkey instead of ground beef in some things, or eating less red meat.
    My mom is always another story, she was born in the 50's so it's all cream based, carb heavy foods. She's also got a very unrealistic view of how weight loss is supposed to work and nags at me if I have something that's not 'diet food'.
  • Jaydec70
    Jaydec70 Posts: 63 Member
    CrystalMarie183 wrote: »
    I have been trying to get my life together. I am so uncomfortable in my own body and have never felt this bad about myself or my life. I weight 300 lbs. and am disgusting. I try to get my husband to make changes with me, but he just doesn't seem to care. Is there others out there that are struggling from lack of support at home? How are you handling it?

    First off, your not not disgusting, you feel disgusting. There is a huge difference. Second make changes for you that you can. Don't expect others to change, but set an expectation of what behaviors you will and won't tolerate from others if possible. Do grocery shopping if possible and have a good sense of foods that are healthy. You can't change anyone but yourself, but you can make it more appealing by buying healthy foods all household members want. Healthy can be quite tasty. If you can set up a schedule of staples you eat regularly, for example I have 2 Eggs and 1 fruit for breakfast daily 90% of time... this can be stuck to and part of routine regardless of others meals. Exercise with a walk or basic but do something you can do regularly too. For me it takes about a month before the rest of the family will buy in. It's hard but if I get there we have a chance together. Don't know if I helped, but happy to talk further if you need.
  • Spiderpug
    Spiderpug Posts: 159 Member
    I'm the only one 'dieting' in my house so its only my attitude which decides if I will lose weight/get fit -I exercise alone (walking initially but gonna try a running program - eek) and food planning involves cooking what I want with additional for them! I found it much easier to ignore their choices as time went on (7weeks in now).
    You have to be a bit selfish, focus on you and you never know, he may follow!

    P.S I spend a lot of time prowling these pages so you are never truly alone :)
  • Jpoirier17
    Jpoirier17 Posts: 18 Member
    Do it for you and you will lead by example. I work with a lot of fat people and they were always trying to feed me sweets or inviting me to dinner and event with lot of drinking involved... I learned to say no and think about me. Now 45 pounds lighter my coworkers are now following my example and most of them started to hit the gym and ask me about what food should they eat etc. All the activities from the past are changing slowly to more healthy events like sports or hiking.
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