How do you make weight loss w/a spouse work well?
 

My DH and I are overweight. If we go by the BMI only, we are both about 100+ lbs each overweight. He saw his physician the other day, I saw mine a month ago. We are both to lose weight and his doctor suggested using the Mediterranean diet and my endo is on board with such as well. That said, my DH hasn't decided if he wants to loose the weight right now. He knows he needs to but I'm afraid if he isn't ready to do it, it will not work for him and derail me if I try it alone.

What do you all do if you are loosing weight with a spouse?

I don't want to make this super competitive, as if one finds success and the other doesn't that can be a downer too. Do you have secrets to what works for you? Do you just make a change in your diets on one day or ease into it? That's where I am uncertain with him. For myself I can usually start right away, yes it's hard but I need to make it work is my thought. His thoughts in the past is "it's hard I need to go eat cheese or salami because I did atkins in my 20s and I lost lots of weight this way". I am just looking for ideas on what might be helpful in keeping his spirits up to begin to loose the weight and to loose it in tandem with him.

TIA for the ideas!
PS: if you have done the Mediterranean diet - do you have a red wine to recommend? I am not a red type of gal usually so any insight for that too would be great.

You're right that if he isn't ready, it probably just won't work for him. If you're ready, and you've already figured out how you want to go about it, why not just start?

In my personal experience, I decided to lose weight, found something that worked for me, and started losing weight. My boyfriend lost some weight just by the changes I made from cooking and then eventually followed a few of the principals that I was using to lose weight. We are open with each other about how much weight we've lost, how we feel we're doing, if we feel like maintaining or losing right now, etc. etc. Its been a pretty laid back conversation and we share our successes and failures. But at the same time, when I knew he was struggling, I didn't boast to him when I had a big success on the scale.

Overall, you can't let him hold you back from making a change if you're ready. Just do it! I don't know how helpful that really is, but I wish you luck no matter what you both end up doing.

As for red wine (I have no experience with that diet though), Pinot Noir is typically very palatable even to those who aren't usually red wine drinkers.

I would just suggest cooking healthier for you and he can join in what you are eating and by default eat healthier. That way if he wants something you can't have he can eat it without you. I am in a similar situation in that I am making healthy dinners for my husband and myself. But we eat very different breakfasts and lunches. My husband wants to lose a little weight but I need to lose a lot so we are taking different strategies.

With loss goals and achievements, i would say share things like that but maybe don't gloat about it. That way you can celebrate and hopefully encourage him without rub it it in which can just depress him.

Hope that helps a little bit.

Thank you for your help and thoughts on this. I will offer DH what I make for the rest of us and perhaps he will decide on his own when he is good and ready to tackle his own loss.

No, I don't think we would gloat about our achievements if one of us would be in that positon. :) We usually try to cheer each other on with other things we may be doing, and I guess I don't see this differently. My only issue currently is helping him in seeing weight loss as a good thing. He's a totally processed junkie if he's left to his own shopping, however in the time we have been married he's continued to find new likes that are more of the natural, but his first loves are always the bad ones. When I told him I had begun looking into this diet one of the first things I read is that you leave butter alone. We joked, but the sheer terror sprung in his eyes for just a moment I thought. Yes, three items that would make my husbands perfect food groups in his listing: sausages (any type), cheeses (any type) and butter. So I have a bit of a challenge ahead in convincing him quinoa is something he might enjoy.

I am going to make my first steps tonight of packing up and going to ride the bike. I am hopeful I can do this for a bit and I might try putting in a few intervals too boot.

Again thank you for your insight. I'll have to let you know how it all goes!

lemonthyme, if your husband is a sausage, cheese, and butter guy you may want to look into a low carb diet for him, such as Atkins. There is a great Atkins board on here that has a lot of the rules for induction, which is the first stage of the lifestyle. The Atkins website also offers a lot of good information as far as which foods can be eaten during which stages. Maybe you could each do your own thing for breakfast and lunch, but figure out dinners that will work for both of you.

My husband and I are also in a similar position with our weights (except we have more weight to lose. About 200 lbs each from our starting weights). We're both down 70 plus lbs from our highest weights.

We have different goals, different eating and dieting styles and preferences, and different motivations.

Sometimes one of us is dieting when the other is not. Usually we diet very differently, so we often have food in the house that the other one isn't eating.

We've learned that we do not have to do any of this together for either of us to succeed.

For the first time ever, we are simultaneously on a similar diet, with similar goals. While it's very convenient to be eating similarly (there's nothing in the house either of us is trying to avoid), there have been far fewer advantages to "doing this together" than I expected there to be.

I thought being on the same plan at the same time would make weight loss significantly easier, but it really hasn't. It's still pretty much as difficult as when one of us is dieting and the other isn't. A few things are easier (or at least more convenient), but mostly it's the same old same old.

In my experience, the best way to motivate an uninterested spouse is to succeed on your own in a way that doesn't seem entirely difficult or miserable.

But ultimately we all diet alone. We cannot help or hinder one another, except by mutual consent. We can't make anyone else fail or succeed, and no one can make us fail or succeed.

My hubby was put on a low carb diet two months ago by his Dr. I was doing CICO, but since I cook, I switched to it for ease and to support him. We'd both done LC before and I never had an issue with it. It would be difficult in our house for one of us to eat one way and the other another as he doesn't cook and doesn't want to start.

He's dropped 57 lbs and other than his beloved mashed potatoes, rice, and french fries, he's liking it so far. The diet gets a lot of bad rep, but to be fair, I eat more veggies and healthy fats on it than I ever did on CICO, and yes I eat lots of butter. I cook with olive oil and coconut oil, and there are lots of easy low carb recipes out there that keep things from just becoming meat and salad. It's not all meat and cheese either. There are many different low carb plans to choose from. Some prefer Atkins, some Keto, or some don't even bother with ketosis and keep carbs at 50-100g or more. You can still have berries and some other fruit on some plans, as well as whole grains like quinoa.

After 3 weeks in I found my appetite shrink to the point that I only eat around 1200-1400 calories a day, less really after you factor in exercise. I've lost close to 20 lbs (men just suck) and went down a size in pants, a bra size, and I can see my collar bones again. I feel amazing, no longer sluggish in the afternoons and no longer have the after lunch naptime feeling.

The key to any diet is one that will be sustainable and able to stick to for life. So I concur with gagirl - if that's the diet he prefers, then maybe he should try it? Butter is not the enemy LOL. Of course, if he's not ready to do any diet at all, he won't be successful.

Latest Dr. report on my husband - his cholesterol went down and his HDL went up, blood pressure is now perfect, and the pre-diabetes has improved almost back to normal. He's looking sexier! He still has about 75 lbs to go, but I think he's definitely going to get there, probably long before I see Onderland LOL. Stupid female hormones and water retention.....

Thank you all! I think I will make my journey my own and if and when he wants to hop on board when he is ready then we will look at what diet will work for him. Once I figure out his likes/wants then we will go from there and adjust accordingly may be the best game plan.

FickleHearts: I hear you on the lady vs men, that was always my dad when my parents would diet, dad would loose 20 to mom's 5. NOT FAIR! But, if there is encouragement all along, then that's good. It's one thing I will never understand. I'd like to but, I guess thats one of life's mysteries - we mysterious women!

kaplods: that all makes sense. Sometimes I forget that though we are partners he is his own man. Enjoy the remaining days of summer! Are you a Packer fan? I see too that you are from WI.

gagirl: I will have him look at what are his options. When I was pregnant he kind of ate the GD diet with me and he did take off a few pounds. And I will give him credit, he made sure I stuck w/the plan then.

My boyfriend loses crazy amounts of weight quickly, while I struggle to lose a pound and keep it off. We eat different breakfasts and lunches, but usually share dinner together. The biggest struggle is support, but I do better with exercise support than food support. I could care less what he eats (because healthy recipes can be super yummy too), but I really need someone to help me get to the gym on a regular basis.

Ultimately, the best thing you can do is offer it to him and ask that at the very least, if he chooses to do nothing for his own weight loss that he still acts as a cheerleader for YOUR weight loss. Mutual support and communication is always key to anything to do in a relationship. :)

My hubby and I have lost over 10 stone together and are still going on with it. He started at 293 me at 229 and now we are both about 2 stone each off our dream weights.

If you are cooking healthy meals it is easier to do it for the whole family. I am also on Whole 30 right now and my hubby isn't but because I am cooking Whole 30 meals he is losing weight too.

Plus if two of you do it, you are then each others motivation.

Only by osmosis. I like hearing when they win, but I don't watch the games. When it comes to sports, I have the attention span of a gnat.

Hubby is the native Wisconsonite (I was raised in Illinois), but only slightly more interested in sports than I am. He'll watch a couple games per year with friends.

Now his 91 year old grandma watches every game.