The first year my husband and I were dating, we ate out all the time. In that year, I gained 50lbs, he gained 10-15. It's been a struggle ever since!
I agree with the other posters. You need to think about yourself in this situation and not your boyfriend. If he gets upset that you aren't eating pizza, etc, that's his problem. If you want to lose weight and be healthy, you're going to have to stand your ground, and he's going to have to deal with it.
Best of luck!
Since he has gained weight also he may well be using you to enable himself. Whatever the reasoning it isn't healthy mentally or physically. You are an adult and you shouldn't have to eat a piece of food to keep your BF sweet-Put yourself first and he will either come around to the idea and maybe even be inspired enough to lose his extra. Or, he won't and you'll be better off without him.
I'm surprised you are seemingly as tolerant/understanding of him as you are tbh, I think I'd just about hit the roof if someone was trying to guilt me into eating unwanted foods. Surely if you love someone you should want the best for them, he just sounds very selfish in this respect.
Last edited by serendipity907; 05-23-2012 at 05:04 PM.
I gained nearly 100 pounds while living with my ex. Why? At first, I'd say we were enablers for each other. I didn't care that he was overweight, and he didn't care that I was overweight. We ate out a lot together, went shopping at the grocery store together, and indulged together. It was fun at first, but got old when I realized what was happening to my body! I still tried to occasionally eat healthy as I had in the past, but he would quickly put a stop to it, telling me he loved me the way I was, that my weight didn't matter, and that he felt rejected when we didn't eat the same things together. He'd get way bent out of shape if opted for a veggies or a salad, and of course it was ten times worse if I merely suggested that he try to drink less soda (he easily went through a 12 pack or more a day) or that maybe we should have less fast food (which eventually became a daily habit).
One day I'd decided I'd had enough, and that he wasn't going to have any control over what I chose to put in my mouth. It was an uphill battle. It involved more than hurting his feelings, he'd actually scream at me when I nicely asked him to stop bringing home bags of fast food on the way home from work. He'd call me a stuck-up b*tch if I ordered a salad when we went out. He'd buy my favorite treats and literally stick them in my face, calling me a loser for caring about others thinking I was fat. It was often easier to give in to his demands rather than stand up for myself and endure a huge, unnecessary fight. Either way, I'd end up crying and miserable, and that's no way to live. It took me a while to realize that he "needed" me to join in as his little food buddy, otherwise he'd feel guilty for indulging whenever I was actually trying to eat healthier and take care of myself. And he'd try to pass his guilt to me. And when I really started putting my foot down, ate better, and started losing weight, things got even worse. After losing the first 40 pounds, he claimed he was no longer attracted to me because I had "let myself go." Er . . . let myself go? Just when I'd started caring about myself again? He was taking all my food decisions as a judgment call against his and that never really ended as long as we were together. We eventually (and thankfully) broke it off, and without his issues hanging over my head I had an easier time concentrating on what I needed to do for my health. I now weigh less than I did when I met him.
Not saying your case is as extreme or that you need to break things off with him like I did with my ex (there were more severe problems beyond just the food issues that are far too numerous to mention here), but maybe my story will get you thinking about the difference between his wants and your needs. You need to be healthier; the quality of your very life depends on it! It's not fair of him to coerce you into eating something you don't want to just because it "hurts his feelings." There has to be a compromise somewhere, and there has to more to spending quality time together than ordering fattening food. It's likely he's using you as his own enabler.
You've recognized that the weekly binge leads you nowhere with your progress, and it looks like it paves the way of keeping off-plan for most of the week. Pick a neutral time to sit down and talk with him about your concerns. Don't even focus on the weight, bring up the fact that you need to be healthier, that you want to have more energy, that you need to feel your very best in order to be happy. Explain that he shouldn't take your food decisions personally. Discuss potential options that will work for both of you. Could he order that pizza while you make yourself a fresh, home-made salad? You could feast on your salad (since you made it, you have full control over what goes into it and how many calories it is) and have maybe one or two slices of the pizza he ordered to go with it. He can even buy the salad ingredients if he still wants to be the one to treat. Or he could buy the ingredients to make a pizza and it's something you could do together at home (once again, allowing you full control over what goes into your portion). Ask him to be open to different restaurants where you can both find something you like; Olive Garden offers more than pasta, pizza, and breadsticks for example, they have some great soups that are low calorie. My husband and I occasionally go there and he'll order pizza while I get the minestrone or pasta e fagioli soup.
He and I often have pizza nights at home, but instead of ordering Pizza Hut like we used to, we'll buy a medium thin crust from the Walmart deli (serving sizes and calories are printed right on the box), and while it's baking I'll prepare my salad to go with it. It's cheaper and more fun than ordering in, and gives me more awareness of my portions and calories, making it less likely to indulge too much.
Ideally, when you're in a relationship you should be helping each other and taking care of each other's needs rather than conforming to selfish wants and enabling bad habits. Him guilting you into indulging certainly isn't healthy for either of you.
Last edited by Elladorine; 05-23-2012 at 05:16 PM.
If Thursday Pizza Take Out night is a trigger for you, then maybe you should try to avoid it. Or try some other cuisine that isn't pizza.
However, that's not what you asked. I always go for a small (8-inch), thin crust pizza either plain or with ham and mushroom. Depending on how many calories I've eaten that day, I'll eat half of it (400 calorie-ish range) or the whole pizza (800 calorie-ish range). I make sure I drink a lot of water (or on wilder days lol, diet soda) as I eat because this helps me feel full. Keep on drinking long after your meal, it'll help you stay full.
If I've eaten proper meals all day such that i can only have half my pizza, and I think I might feel bingy later on, I'll throw away the rest of the pizza (though obviously not in front of the person who bought it). Leftovers are like kryptonite if you are feeling bingy.
Alternatively, I'd get the appetizer wings (the plain grilled type, not the breaded deep fried type) instead of a pizza with a plain garden salad, no cheese, no meat no dressing. I'll use my own dressing at home because I'll probably have the Wishbone Salad dressing spray or some light dressing at home, I want to measure.
It's not that you can never have take out again or even once a week. It's more about what portions of it you have and what bingey behaviours having take out brings out of you.
Treat yourself kindly, ok? You totally deserve it. And be convinced that you can and will succeed on this journey if you're determined.
Whenever I go out somewhere without nutritional information (which is at least once a week during the summer), I always just try to order as best I can and estimate as best I can. I lost approx. 40-45 lbs. doing that, and I've been maintaining for a few months doing it.
Most Italian restaurants have pasta with marinara sauce, which isn't all that many calories. Pasta is only about 200 calories a cup, and a couple of cups of angel hair pasta seems like a ton! Add some marinara & even a sprinkling of grated cheese, and it's still only about 550 calories. Not bad.
Most Italian restaurants that serve pizza usually have a healthier option---marguerita or veggie, etc. Once slice with a salad (dressing & other fattening goodies on the side) won't do much damage.
I believe it is important to learn how to eat in a variety of situations. Inevitably, not all of our meals will be eaten at home where we can count the calories, and we need to realize that and figure out way to deal with it from the get-go.
Beyond all that, that one meal---even if you do have a calzone or some other fattening thing---will not ruin the rest of the week. But stretching that one meal out into a few days of overeating will ruin your efforts. It is days of overeating, not the one meal, that is hindering your efforts to lose.
Your title says it all. And that's no treat. You have to stand your ground and get your health to where it should be. The only place he figures into this is to support you in your efforts.
Alright, my son begged for pizza so we gave him an end of the school year treat. What I did was went to a take-and-bake place with totally customizable toppings. I grabbed one of their salads as well, super yummy with sun dried tomatoes, feta, olives, spinach and romaine. I had a slice of pizza and a HUGE salad.
If you find you still cannot control yourself, you need to eliminate it until you get your eating under control. This may involve a very frank discussion with your boyfriend. WHY is you not eating the foods bothering so much? I'm guessing he's looking for reassurance and another person to indulge with. But, if he loves you as much as he should, he should want you to be healthy enough to enjoy each others companies for years without health complications.
Also, if you cut out the take-out, use that money to save for a vacation. THAT'S a real treat, not stuffing yourself with greasy processed, sodium-filled "food".
If you really want to lose weight then stop getting take out every week, try once a month. You need to make him understand that YOU need and want to loose the weight and not ordering something from a pizza place is not an insult to him. It really sounds like he is immature, he needs to get on board with your journey and be supportive.
It's a shame that you are damaging your health to avoid a fight. I think you need a new routine. Pizza is one of those foods that we all love and that is typically loaded with calories, fat, and sodium. I had to pretty much cut it out completely, eating it only when at someone's house if that was the meal being served.
I can't think of any situation in which a healthy, mature individual would get angry at another healthy, mature individual for wanting to make an improvement in their life / health. That said, I guess I am implying that somewhere there is immaturity or an unhealthy relationship. I'm sorry that it comes out that way, but what other conclusion can be drawn? I think you need to realize that you have control. I also think you have to realize you can't blame anyone else for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday's behavior. Splurge a little on Thursday and have a slice or 2 of pizza if you want to . Just don't on the other days! If you really only overate one day a week, it wouldn't undo the other 6 days if they were on plan. It's as simple as that. Stand up for what you need to do to get healthy. You are worth the effort.
You can usually order something healthy at most restaurants if they have the ingredients. Just order grilled fish or meat and veggies and you should be ok so long as the veggies don't have oil, butter, and the meat isn't bigger than your palm. I really just had to be realisitc about what a true portion size is. I always think back to those lean cuisine dinners and how much food is in them. If you think that for those little plates with calorie reduced food in them, they run somewhere between 200 and 500 cals depending on what brand and what's in them, then you have a reference point. You know regular food will have more fat, and thus more cals, so adjust accordingly. You know veggies are the healthiest lowest cal option, and that pasta with cream sauce prob one of the highest cal options besides dessert. It just takes some practice, and you will know what to order from where. And yes, I agree that sometimes you just have to say no. I have, and that has made the biggest difference. I have coworkers that this week alone since Monday have tried to cram 3 different kinds of cake and flan down my throat. And it's only Wednesday. Not to mention the chips, ranch dip, hummus, etc. They want me to weigh 700 lbs. JUST SAY NO!!!
Today my husband and I went to a new restaurant for lunch here in Chile. Turns out most of the menu was pub-grub type fare, hamburgers, sandwiches, and mom and pop style entrees. I didn't feel like any of the healthier options (mostly fish) so I went with the only thing that spoke to me on the menu: a cheeseburger. BUT I ordered it straight up (no fries), and split a mixed side salad with my husband (all veggies, no croutons cheese or nuts - lemon juice for a dressing). AND, I ended up eating only half the hamburger because it was enormous.
So yes I went to an 'unhealthy' restaurant, ordered an 'unhealthy' item, but in the end had a pretty okay meal and was within my caloric range for the day.
I understand what everyone else is saying but I also understand that it would be hard to see it the way that outsiders do if you guys really care about each other. I'm not going to say if he cared about you he'd act differently because that's simply not true - he might just not realize how serious this is to you...
Have you sat down with him in a neatural setting (ie; not the night he's planning to take you out) and really talked to him about everything ? not just said in fat and this doesn't help? maybe tell him how being big makes you feel emotionally / physically and how you just want to feel good again. If he still wants to fight, then I would say there may be some more serious issues at work.
When my fiancé moved in with me I loved cooking for him. And what I made him I made for myself. Whole pots of pasta. Whole pizzas. Just huge servings of everything. Cooking together and eating together was fun. I like that he liked my food. I probably gained 30lbs in the 2 years hes lived with me. When I started this journey I knew that was the first thing that had to go. He wasn't that happy the first few weeks but I still made him things and ate with him - we just stopped having the same things. I've lost 25lbs so far, and that was my biggest change. Not eating out weekly simply must be done or you must choose a different place to eat.
Is he against switching where you eat? Applebees has several dishes at 550 calories which are very good, and they don't bring you bread while you wait which I like. we go there now instead if a chinese buffet we went to. If I wanted to, I could eat there weekly since it hits right where my at home dinners hit (5-700 calories). I would think this would be a simple solution.
in the end the solution is willpower. you just have to say NO MORE. If it causes a fight you two will get through it - and if the relationship falls apart over something like not wanting to eat pizza every week, well, I'm not sure you guys could have handled bigger life problems anyways and it could be for the best.
Hi
what works quite well for me is a Caprese Salad and normally some lean meat or vegetables on the side.... Is this an option from the pizza place you order from?
I still tried to occasionally eat healthy as I had in the past, but he would quickly put a stop to it, telling me he loved me the way I was, that my weight didn't matter, and that he felt rejected when we didn't eat the same things together. He'd get way bent out of shape if opted for a veggies or a salad, and of course it was ten times worse if I merely suggested that he try to drink less soda (he easily went through a 12 pack or more a day) or that maybe we should have less fast food (which eventually became a daily habit).
It involved more than hurting his feelings, he'd actually scream at me when I nicely asked him to stop bringing home bags of fast food on the way home from work. He'd call me a stuck-up b*tch if I ordered a salad when we went out. He'd buy my favorite treats and literally stick them in my face, calling me a loser for caring about others thinking I was fat. It was often easier to give in to his demands rather than stand up for myself and endure a huge, unnecessary fight. Either way, I'd end up crying and miserable, and that's no way to live. It took me a while to realize that he "needed" me to join in as his little food buddy, otherwise he'd feel guilty for indulging whenever I was actually trying to eat healthier and take care of myself. And he'd try to pass his guilt to me. And when I really started putting my foot down, ate better, and started losing weight, things got even worse. After losing the first 40 pounds, he claimed he was no longer attracted to me because I had "let myself go." Er . . . let myself go? Just when I'd started caring about myself again? He was taking all my food decisions as a judgment call against his and that never really ended as long as we were together. We eventually (and thankfully) broke it off, and without his issues hanging over my head I had an easier time concentrating on what I needed to do for my health. I now weigh less than I did when I met him.
