DH wants to lose weight, but doesn't want to DO anything to lose the weight...
My DH is obese and has been for about 6 years. He knows he needs to lose weight. Problem is everytime he "tries" he doesn't want to count calories (or do WW) because its too much, and he doesn't feel like it. He claims he will "just eat healthier".
Only he doesn't.
I am a plan kind of person. Total planner. And weightloss is no exception. I have a plan, small goals, larger goals, weight in, I plan my workouts, plan my meals, and count calories. I like to know where I'm going with weightloss.
DH doesn't want to do any planning, he thinks its obsessive. So he says he will "eat healthier" and "workout". But he never does. Because he has nothing planned. He works late a few nights a week, and stops at the drive thru. So I suggested he start with that habit, and make a plan that works for him. Maybe have healthy frozen meals in the freezer to quickly make when he gets home, or pack a "meal" that he can eat on the way home, like a turkey sandwich...But he says planning it to obsessive...so he continues to stop for fast food...he doesn't want to DO anything to change his habits, he just wants to magically stop. He'll say "tonight I won't stop", then he does. I've told him, you are obviously hungry after work, its ok to eat, just choose something healthier...
The same with breakfast. He stops at Mcd's every morning. I even bought microwavealbe sandwiches (lower calorie, special K ones) and said here, you can microwave them before work and skip Mcds. Nope he doesn't. Its "too hard"...I asked him what's your plan to not go to Mcds' for breakfast...adn he said "I'll just skip breakfast"...He was serious.
He says he wants to lose weight then when we go shopping he continues to fill the freezer with crap! French fries, frozen fish pieces (battered and fried)...I don't want to say anything, he's an adult and can eat how he pleases....
I've been through the weight loss thing each time after my kids. I put on a lot of weight while pregnant, and I lost is each time. Each time I've invited him to join me. I cook healthy and fill the house with healthy snacks (he still stops for fast food and buys crap for the house). I invite him on walks, and workouts that are his pace because right after I have the baby I'm back at square one. I invite hime each time to get healthy again with me...but nope, there's always an excuse.
And now almost done with baby #3 (last one) I
ve asked him if he wants to join me in my weight loss again, and he says he's going to "eat healthier"...Like I haven't heard that before.
My guess is he just has no desire to lose weight...
I feel bad because he feels bad about his weight and talks A LOT about losing it, but I doesn't want to say "well its not going to magically fly off if you can't be bother to do anything to lose it!!!"
You can't do anything about your husband's weight. He is the only one who can and until he feels ready it won't happen. In making suggestions, you may make him do just the opposite to show you he is in charge of what he eats. Lead by example is all we can do.
My husband is the same. He'd like to lose weight but is not willing to make the necessary sacrifices to do so. It's incredibly frustrating at times, as I get easily worried and I want him to be healthy. My MIL has told him a million times he should try to lose weight, and it always ends with him getting really annoyed at her. She also asked me to get him to do it, but I already know I can't. He's the one who has to decide to do the work, and until he does there is nothing I can do about it. . . I guess the only thing to do is wait for something magical to happen (him realizing what he's gotta do, and then do it.)
My fiance could be a mirror of your husband. He refuses to do any type of food tracking, also stating that it's too much work..."I shouldn't have to do that" is one of h is favorite mantras. He tells me daily that he wants to go to the gym, but every day there is an excuse "my knees hurt, my back hurts, it's raining, I don't want to get gas in my car first..." the list goes on and on.
I told him, when I started, that the first thing I wanted to do was change how we ate. We would literally go out to eat at least 4 times a week, if not more. Fast food, restaurants, you name it. I started making more food in the house, having things already cooked so he'd only need to heat it up. Now my fiance will eat whatever I make, which is good, but if I am not able to make something, he still stops for fast food and junk food. And he frequently brings home things that are not healthy at all. What always gets me, too, is that he buys something for me, knowing full well that I won't eat it, just so he can eat it later.
I no longer send him shopping, even with a list. He gets sidetracked by all the things that are unhealthy and tasty-looking, and come home with twice as much stuff as what he was supposed to get. His excuse "I should be able to eat delicious things!". Then I have to explain to him, again, that having that type of junk food in the house is detrimental to me, and that if he wants it he should take it to work so I don't have to see it. His excuse "why? I'll just eat it all anyway". And he does, and it makes me sick.
I've personally stopped asking him about his weight loss plans, because I'm tired of hearing excuses from him. Either he wants to lose it, or he doesn't. He clearly hasn't hit the point where I have, where it was time to make a choice and stick with it.
He can say he wants to lose the weight all he wants, but if he really wants it, he will do something about it. I have said that to my fiance, and yes he was angry at me for saying it. But I told him that would be the last time he'd hear anything about it from me, because I was no longer going to try and get him to do anything. He has to find his own motivation and reason to do it. I also told him that he cannot complain to me about being overweight for the same reason...if you don't want to be overweight, do something about it.
(sorry if that sounds harsh, but I know my fiance and if I kept listening to him complain without him actually doing anything about it, he would never change. He needed a hard kick in the pants to realize I wasn't going to listen to his complaining all the time because all it was doing was bringing me down)
It sounds like this would be a total drop in the bucket, but when I first started I never cooked and ate out all the time. I looked up calories at the fast food places and restaurants I typically went to, and kept some 'good choices' in mind when I went there. I even kept a quick cheatsheet in my smartphone "Notes". Admittedly, some places are pretty darn limited, but this helped a lot. I continued to eat at Wendy's, Chipotle, McDonald's (breakfast), Chick Fil'A, Subway, Jimmy Johns well into my diet (and still eat at some of those places, but not as often).
It sounds like he won't want to put in the effort to look up and find healthier meals, so I'm really not sure this will help but - for example - McDonald's breakfast, you can get an Egg McMuffin for 300 calories. It's tasty and I do it whenever I'm in a hurry and hungry. When I started wanting to lose weight I had to be realistic that I had neither time nor inclination to start cooking all the time, but that I could still make better choices. I used to go to the Arby's drive-through and get a full marketfresh sandwich combo, large, and load up on the "horsey sauce", adding 2-3 extra packets to the sandwich. Yeah that came out to around 1200-1500 calories for one meal. And it wasn't even THAT much food, I could probably still eat it today if I were so inclined.
QuilterinVA- I've worried about that, that saying something might cause the opposite. Its seems that my DH does not do that thankfully! lol...or if he does, I haven't noticed. I agree until he is ready, there's nothing I can do. It just seems so much like he's ready, in that he talks about losing weight so often...but I guess we all talk about things we'd like to do someday..
EmCoconut - "not willing to make the sacrifices"...that pretty much sums it up. Weightloss isn't easy, and it does take work. It takes time and effort. I tried to compare it to school, where you can't just show up to class and sleep, there's work to be done, but its worth it...DH just does not want to make any sacrifices for weightloss...he's trying to find a way to lose weight without changing anything in his life, routine or putting forth any effort. And if that were possible, well, I'd like to find out how!
Buffinlovin - yes, my DH feels he should not have to do any extra work. He is not ready to be inconvenienced for a second to lose weight. Like before meals, I log my cals on lose it (iphone app)..he sees that as too much work, especially before 3 meals. I agree the complaining is getting difficult. I am by nature a problem fixer...and DH complains about his weight (which is increasing) and problems related to his weight, and I sometimes just walk away. Because I have already gently told him that if he lost weight XYZ would feel better, and nothing changes. I have a very hard time listening to anyone complaining on and on about a problem they have no motivation to fix. It drives me batty as well.
JohnP - yeah that what it seems. I try to put myself in his shoes, and as someone who has spent a life time with weight issues, I don't want to hurt his feelings.
TAI - -thank you so much. I try. I don't want to make him feel like a prisoner here by trying to control what he eats. As an adult he can make his own choices. I try to tell him not to bring the junk in the house because of ME (which is true!) and the kids (also true) and he finds ways around that by buying junk food he knows I dont like, and eats after the kids go to bed. He DOES live here, and he has every right to buy and eat whatever he wants so its a difficult situation. We don't fight about it though. He seems content with adjusting his eating so that he can still eat unhealthy/over eat and not affect anyone else...
Its just getting hard because this isn't vanity weight. His BP is high, his Cholesterol is high, and his sugar is boarderline diabetic...he out one over a hundred pounds since we've met (12 years ago.) He can not physically keep up with the kids, he snores and definitely has sleep apnea (I hear him gasping at night) he has aches and pains, and can't bend over without getting out of breath because of "his gut" he tells me...He is always falling alseep on the couch (probably from such poor sleep at night) and he has heartburn so often he keeps tums upstairs, downstairs and in his car. He os only 30! And such a wonderful, bright, kind person! I want to help him, but I know there's nothing I can do, he needs to want to do this for himself.
my2cats - I think that is a good idea. I can say that my DH will pretty nuch never cook. Its sad because it means there;s a lot of food he will not eat. I do cook healthy but I got tired of fixing *my* meals to please his picky taste. He won't eat most veggies (basically only brocilli and grean beans), no beans or lentils, no coucous, no quinoa, nothing cooked with nonstick spray (has to be butter)...
I was trying to make meals around his taste for years and I got tired of eating the same crap over and over and leaving out foods I liked. He wants meals that taste great, made to his order, without effort...so viola, fast food... Like if we go t odunkin donuts, I will get the veggie egg white flat bread, but he'll get two big and toasted snadwiches....he just wants what he wants * when he's hungry* and that's it...then after he talks about eating healthy.
My suggestion? Don't worry about your husband's weight but make sure he gets a physical exam every year. Hopefully his doctor will explain how his lifestyle and weight are massively increasing his risk of disease and shortening his lifespan.
I would put your efforts into making sure your kids have a healthy relationship with food and lead by example where the adults are concerned.
Thank you John. The kids and the examples set for them is something I worry about as well. I want to be sure they have a healthy example set for them. DH does agree with this and eats at night and out of view of their watchful eyes. This seems to work now while they are very young, but I suspect they will wise up to it as they get older.
When my husband reached the point of wanting to count calories (he had already been losing weight on his own) I signed him up on the site I was using and logged the stuff for him. Seriously. We would measure out our food and I'd log it for him and let him know where he was and how he was doing. Eventually he started doing it on his own and it was his idea to get the food scale.
Is there a form of activity that he enjoys that isnt like exercise that will get him more active? My husband bought a mt bike because he had enjoyed it in his 20s and wanted to get back into it - and that has helped him lose weight - because he likes to do it and it isnt like exercise all of the time.
LizzyG- I did sign my husband up for Lose It about a year ago (he was willing) I ended up logging his calories, but he never got on board. And if he would eat when I wasn't around (late night fast food) he didn't log it. He really wasn't concerned about going over.
Yes he does enjoy bike riding and bought one two years ago, and he did get into riding. He said he felt great that summer, and I don't know numbers but it appeared he lsot some weight. He lost interest though. Recently I have been suggesting he get back into riding. Just for the sake of having fun.
I have told him I will support whenever he wants to go out riding. I think he feels bad being gone so much at work then on his days off leaving me preggo and with 2 kids. I have told him over and over, I want him to go! That he will be happier and healthier and that will be better for him and us in the long run! I don't think he will be bike riding this year. However I have been asking him to go on walks. We have taken some walks, He pulls the kids in the wagon and we walk around the neighborhood.
It seems a bit easier to encourage him to be active than eat better, so I will continue encouraging him to do that.
Everyone's breaking point is different. For years I was not ready to commit to what it takes to lose weight. The more my ex-husband insisted on me losing weight, the more I was demotivated and resisted.
I had to hit the health "rock bottom" a couple of times, before I had my breaking point. It was not until I began to address the issues that caused me to be an "emotional eater" in the first place, that I finally understood food was my defense mechanism.
My faith has been my saving grace through this process.
It's a very difficult predicament. On the one hand he is an adult and should be able to make his own decisions concerning food. But it is difficult to watch someone you love methodically buy and eat crap. Of course, you CAN control what's in your house and if it were me I'd be throwing out the crappy food or returning it to the store. It would lead to a few fights but I wouldn't entertain it.... I would simply say "are you upset cause I threw out your cookies????" because it just sounds like a tantrum. If someone did that to me, my hungry self would be mad but I wouldn't dare put up a fight in the name of food.... I'd be too embarassed to put up a fuss over food.
The excuses part is the hardest of all. We're all guilty of excuses! "But I'm sick today, I need my chinese take out!" or "but I've had such a hard day, I just want to order pizza!" "But it was sooooo busy at work today, I skipped lunch and then I couldn't resist the drive thru!" or "But it's food..., I'm just eating... why should I punish myself by starving???" The key to losing weight (I think) is being able to change our habits and learning not to rely on our excuses. I do this by surrounding myself with motivational quotes.... I know it sounds silly but I keep a list on my computer, on my fridge, in my closet, on the mirror, I just can't get enough quotes!
When I read your post I immediately thought of this:
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
And when I read bufflovin's post I immediately thought:
Those who argue for their limitations generally get to keep them...
and "If you want it, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse"
DH wants to lose weight, but doesn't want to DO anything to lose the weight...
