Super supportive spouses

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amandastardust89
amandastardust89 Posts: 26 Member
in Motivation and Support
Anybody out there have an overly supportive spouse?

What I mean is...one who makes it hard for you to stay on track?

For example: I am nearly 300 lbs. This is the heaviest I have been in my life and I hate it...i really want to change for the better. My wonderful husband is 110 soaking wet. He could stand to GAIN some weight!

He always tells me that I'm beautiful regardless of my weight. He makes helpful suggestions but never hounds me to adhere to my goals. He offers me bites of his food.

It's tough losing weight to begin with, especially when you're the only one in the house who needs to lose. I'm sorry to humble-brag, and I would never change my sweet husband...but his uunconditional love makes it hard for me to change!

Can anybody else relate?

Replies

  • kimothyschma
    kimothyschma Posts: 209 Member
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    Yep. When I was gaining weight, my husband was my biggest enabler. He always said I was beautiful no matter what. When I wanted to lose weight, he supported me in that, too. He’s who I share my success with and confide my fears.

    Have you asked your husband to help you stick to your eating plan? Little things like weighing ingredients if he’s making dinner, or keeping his snacks out of your sight (not hiding food, just eat them in the other room, not in front of me, lol). Or whatever you personally need. You can ask him to help keep you on track, remind you to go to the gym, go on walks with you, etc. If you can turn him into your partner in weight loss you can kind of channel his wonderfulness into a helpful energy instead of something that will make you complacent.

    Now if he doesn’t want to do that stuff, that’s another story. You can’t use another person as your only motivation. But if he’s going to be complimenting you and offering food anyway (mine does this constantly, he loves feeding people), you can ask him to make them compliments about your health/hard work and foods that will help you meet your goals. And you can ask him to stop offering after you say, “No thanks, I’ve met my calorie goal today.”
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
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    My dh told me he wants me to be happy with my body and healthy and that is all he had to say on the matter.
    He was concerned that I lose weight in a healthy way so I explained my goals to him.
    He finds me attractive at every weight I have been and I guess I am the same way with him.
    I am the only person who needs to lose weight in my house.

    I don't want to be nagged or told what to eat or exercise. I don't want my dh to tell me he'd be more attracted to me if I lost 40 lbs. Knowing that I am losing weight for me because I want to made it easier for me.

    It is up to me to manage my calorie intake and say no to things that don't fit my goals. I didn't make huge changes just logging and sticking to my calorie goal as best I could. If dh offers me something I might say no thanks if it doesn't fit my plan for the day. He just says okay.

    I go the the forums here for weight loss support.
    Find some friends on here with similar goals if you need that.
  • ladyhusker39
    ladyhusker39 Posts: 1,406 Member
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    No other person is responsible for whether or not you lose weight. That's all on you.

    I must admit though that I've not heard the "my husband is too wonderful and that's why I can't lose weight" explanation before.
  • DebLaBounty
    DebLaBounty Posts: 1,172 Member
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    This is a good problem to have. If he loves you regardless of your weight, it means he will still love you when you’ve dropped the weight, right? How cool! He is not saying, “Hey, babe, I prefer you fat.” He is not sabotaging you. You can’t take his supportive statements as excuses not to change. You just need to give him a hug, and invite him to go for a walk with you. When he offers you a bite of food, be polite when you say, “no thanks, hon, I just (brushed my teeth) (got so full) (don’t want any).
  • concordancia
    concordancia Posts: 5,320 Member
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    If he were trying to be your gate keeper, it would be much worse. You need to make changes for you, not him.

    If he is truly supportive (vs the kind of person who does what they think is good, no matter how it is received), then you have a gold mine. Let him know how to help you. Would you like him to walk with you? Leave the living room for half an hour so that you can do an exercise video without an audience? Cook some meals? Do the grocery shopping so that you aren't tempted to put some extras in the cart? Keep his snacks in a special place so that they aren't as tempting to you?

    Frankly, all I ask of my husband is that he listen to me talk incessantly about what I have learned lately, what my new goals are, what I have achieved lately... And that we adjust some of our financial goals so that I can buy lamb and tuna steaks instead of always having chicken breast, ground turkey and canned tuna.
  • Treece68
    Treece68 Posts: 780 Member
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    Just tell him why you are doing it and what he could do to help you. Since he is so supportive he should understand and help you.
  • MonaRaeHill
    MonaRaeHill Posts: 145 Member
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    I feel your pain.......my SO (Significant Other), eats normally, quite naturally. For him, it's like breathing. He's ONE OF THOSE people who can eat TWO cookies, and STOP. Or ONE serving of ice cream, and STOP. His diet isn't what I would call terribly healthy (mostly carbs and meat/eggs), but he rarely overeats, and generally eats the sweets for dinner. Drives me nuts! I wouldn't want to eat his diet, but I WOULD love to have eating only minimally, a well established habit, and part of my "norm". And yea, I often remind him to eat his sweets, upstairs, at his place. Because if he brings it downstairs, it's painful for the both of us..........lol.
  • jenilla1
    jenilla1 Posts: 11,118 Member
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    You say he's "super supportive" but it doesn't sound like you really believe that. What would he need to do or not do in order to be more supportive? Have you discussed it with him? If he's as awesome as you describe, he will probably make the effort to do the things you ask.

    Mine actually IS super supportive - in a way that is truly helpful to me. He is my cheerleader and partner - he doesn't make me feel pressure or undermine my efforts in any way. Mine loves me no matter what, too, but that just inspires me to be even better, not to slack off. Maybe that's just a matter of changing your mindset, because do you really think you would feel more motivated if you thought he would only love you if you were fit? Talk about pressure. Him loving you no matter what should boost your confidence, not make you complacent.

    My success is not dependent on anyone else's support, but it sure feels good to have that partner who appreciates and shares my success. The reason I chose my husband in the first place is because of how supportive he is. I wouldn't be with him (or anyone) if he wasn't. And that's a fact. Be grateful for your awesome guy and his unconditional love.

    I feel like I can pretty much do anything I set my mind to. It's a matter of setting priorities and figuring out how badly I want something. If I don't really want something bad enough, it's not going to happen. If I need it (or really want it) to happen, it somehow gets done. And that's all on me.

    In reality, success is 99% on you, 1% on the rest of the world, because sometimes outside forces can set up roadblocks. Just go for it and start giving yourself full responsibility and credit for your success. :D
  • jmfogg
    jmfogg Posts: 5 Member
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    Ugh i have a similar problem but My husband loves my belly and it drives me nuts. I don't mind that he's not very motivational (ive lost 17 lbs so far on my own) but what gets me is when I tell him I've lost 3lbs and he's like oh, good job, in his most unimpressed tone he can muster. Like at least be proud of me, support me because I'm succeeding and that's what husband's are suppose to do.
  • Momepro
    Momepro Posts: 1,509 Member
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    My husband is a real sweetie, who has been amazing about listening to what I need. He knows I hate being bugged or nagged, and he's great about keeping goodies out of the house or at least the ones I like, lol.
  • positivepowers
    positivepowers Posts: 902 Member
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    amandastardust89 wrote: »
    Anybody out there have an overly supportive spouse?

    What I mean is...one who makes it hard for you to stay on track?

    For example: I am nearly 300 lbs. This is the heaviest I have been in my life and I hate it...i really want to change for the better. My wonderful husband is 110 soaking wet. He could stand to GAIN some weight!

    He always tells me that I'm beautiful regardless of my weight. He makes helpful suggestions but never hounds me to adhere to my goals. He offers me bites of his food.

    It's tough losing weight to begin with, especially when you're the only one in the house who needs to lose. I'm sorry to humble-brag, and I would never change my sweet husband...but his uunconditional love makes it hard for me to change!

    Can anybody else relate?

    Whether you recognize it or not, offering you extra food is passive/aggressive behavior and shows that he is ambivalent about your weight loss. He may be afraid you will leave him once you gain your fabulous new body.

    Ask him to stop offering you food and tell him your goals, maybe focus on the health aspect of your program since being nearly 300 lbs cannot be healthy. Maybe if you reinforce the idea that you're losing weight so the two of you can be together for a long time, he will be more likely to stop the dysfunctional part of his supportive behavior. Better yet, to show him that you're not losing weight so you can find somebody "better" plan to do something with him once you've lost a targeted amount of weight. Like, "Once I've lost _____ amount of weight we can have a couple's massage and once I get to my target weight we can take a cruise - just the two of us." Or whatever you two like to do together.

    My ex-husband used to tell me he was "worried" about me because I was getting too heavy (I was, I freely admit that!) I would agree to go on a diet, and no sooner were the words out of my mouth than he would go to the store for a couple of gallons of my favorite ice cream - that he would eat in front of me (see? I know about passive/aggressive behavior! I lived with it for 20 years!) Six months after he left I'd dropped 40 pounds.
  • Seffell
    Seffell Posts: 2,222 Member
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    Mine has been helping me ever since I started 2 years ago - always weighting food if he's cooking, taking notes on amounts, calculating portions etc. He's been amazing.

    But!

    He loves me unconditionally and everytime I'm about to slip and lose my deficit or go above maintanance for the day because of apetite he'd always say "of cource you should eat it". He just wants me to feel happy and comfortable regardless of the long term effect.

    I'm not really complaining but he's never been an accountability budy for me, he's pretty bad at this :)
  • dsboohead
    dsboohead Posts: 1,900 Member
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    ladyhusker39 wrote: »
    No other person is responsible for whether or not you lose weight. That's all on you.

    I must admit though that I've not heard the "my husband is too wonderful and that's why I can't lose weight" explanation before.

    I sit in this camp above^ ^ ^

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