Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowwhite85
I went from 166 last year in July to 198 this month! I've avoided telling him what I weighed for the past 6 months and when he heard 198 come out of my mouth he looked shocked and looked me dead in the eyes and said
"How did YOU let this happen?"
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To me, the reaction seems a bit overblown, I mean if he wasn't concerned by your appearance, what concerns him about the number - is it just because it's a "big, scary" number?
To me it sounds like "sticker shock." The number sounds "shockingly big" to him, but I don't think he realizes what the number really means. People don't know what 198 or 200 lbs (or any weight, for that matter) looks like, but they hear what sounds to them like a "big" number and OMG, it's the end of the world, because it's a big number!
It reflects the culture-wide ignorance of weight issues. 30 lbs is damned easy to gain (heck 250 lbs wasn't that hard). We don't know (and men REALLY don't know) what 10, 20, 50, 100 lbs of extra weight looks like (or can look like since it can look very different on different people, especialy when the fat/muscle/water/bone proportions are different).
Then again there are the women who shave off 20, 30, and even 50 lbs off of their real weight when sharing it, so people (often especially male people) haven an image of a 150 lb woman when they hear 110-120.
I can't tell you how many people were shocked to hear that I weighed over 300 lbs. Friends would talk about someone "way bigger than me, like 300 lbs or something) and I'd say "I weigh 360 lbs."
There mouths would drop open and they'd say "There's no way, you don't look like you weigh that much," and I'd say "yes, this is what 360 lbs looks like."
I've heard women claim weights 100 lbs less than their actual weight. It makes me really crazy, because it gives such a skewed sense of what weight looks like.
Camryn Manheim talks about this in her book "Wake up, I'm fat," that she'd go to audtions for parts and she'd get turned down for being too small for the part "We wanted someone really fat, like over 200 lbs" and she'd say "I weigh 225 lbs," and the casting people wouldn't know how to respond.
Wouldn't you think people in the entertainment business would know what weight looks like?
Ok, I know I'm ranting on a soap box.
I'm not saying that 30 lbs is something to ignore, I just wouldn't necessarily take your husband's comments to mean that you're some sort of circus freak. Gaining 30 lbs is nothing to sneeze at, but neither is it the shock of the century, and it certainly isn't in the realm of "how could this happen?"
He probably wouldn't know that, so I'm not blaming him for being insensitive out of ignorance. If he's at all overweight and you think he might have gained some weight too, I'd encourage him to weigh himself and see what he's gained. It may put your gain into perspective for him (or it may not).
Often men tend to be in denial, even when they're much more overweight than their wives (because they convince themselves it's muscle not fat, even when they look like they're 8 months pregnant).
If your hubby is naturally slim, with a big appetite - it will be very difficult to educate him. My dad ate like a bottomless pit. His evening snack for 30 years was a pint or pint and a half of ice cream and a sleeve of oreos. His average calorie intake had to be somewhere int the 4000 to 6,000 range.
He had a very active job, and burned off all he ate - until retirement, when he started putting on weight around the middle.
All my life, my father would tell my mom and I how easy it was to lose weight, "Just stop eating," he'd say. When he gained the retirement weight and started looking very pregnant, he started dieting for the first time, and suddenly all the things we used to say, were coming out of his mouth "I've given up my snacks, my meals are smaller, I don't eat anything and I still can't lose the weight, and I'm starving."
We did rub it in a little bit by quoting him, "It's easy, just stop eating - not so easy, huh?"
I have to say he did get the weight under control unfairly quickly, but he did become more sympathetic.
I hope your husband will be more patient, understanding and sensitive, but if he isn't don't get discouraged. Remember that your goal is to do the best you can, not necessarily to meet his expectations (and I'm not saying he has any, but if he does and if they're unrealistic, that's not your fault).
You can try to educate him, but if that doesn't go as well as you'd like, don't let that derail you. If he doesn't understand, it's not the end of the world. You can do this even if he doesn't know how to help you.
That he has asked you how he could help is extremely encouraging. A lot of men (my hubby is one) tries to help by bringing suggestions and trying to convince me that I would succeed if I did things HIS way. He's got a bit of a white knight complex, and wants to swooping down and solving problems like superman (the world would be perfect, with no problems if everyone just did what he said).
I'm exagerating, my husband doesn't really think he has the solution to all the world's problems, but he does sometimes think he has the solution to all of MY problems. I love him, but I have to repeatedly tell him that I'm willing to try some of his suggestions, but ultimately I'm in charge.
Husband's bringing me down...
Today is a new day and I'm making changes already. I have set goals for myself and plan on sharing them with my husband when he gets home from work. So excited!!!
