So I am starting to feel like a bad person.

My boyfriend and I started dieting last June. he had gained a lot of weight after we met and simply wanted to take it off. He and I had always been overweight, so I decided to do it with him. (We live together, why not, right?)

Anyway, he started at 260 and myself a mere 5 lbs less. I have since lost ~100 lbs. He did very well at first, lost about 80 lbs. He got down to 180 then something simply changed. He got too comfortable and in two months has gained about 25 lbs and is back up to his low 200's. He is not too too concerned about it, although he makes the occasional "I feel fat" comment after he scarfs down bad food.

Here is the problem. I have found that when I try to encourage him to go back to the healthy lifestyle with me, I feel like I am calling him fat, or simply like I am another "skinny" person looking down on his (again) unhealthy eating habits. Before I go on, of course, I never call him fat. I just feel like that is the implication behind my nudging him. Afterall, we started a mere 5 lbs apart, and the difference is now ~50 lbs between the two of us.

Instead of encouraging him to take it easy with the junk, I have found myself even condoning it. I even ordered his large stuffed crust pizza for him last night while eating my own dinner of fish and cauliflower.

I take one or two bites of his food, whether it be the pizza, or a hamburger or whatever, and feel like I am satisfied and really get away with a lot less cravings this way. I am starting to analyze my actions/thought process and determine if I am "allowing" this bad eating simply so I dont have to order the whole pizza myself. This way, I can eat one bite instead of one whole slice or worse one whole pizza.

I need to break this cycle. I just don't know how to do it.

Congratulations on your great loss. I have found it does no good to encourage, beg, nag or plead with someone else to lose weight, no matter how much they may need to or no matter how much you love them. Continue with your good eating habits, for yourself and be a good role model. He will have to decide for himself if he wants to do it.

I think Bargoo is right, no one but him can make him ready for a change. That being said, I've always been one to speak up on this, my Mom has heart issues and my husband is a diabetic. So I would sit him down and say that you love him as he is and you respect and support his right to choose for himself but you can't stand by and say nothing. I'd tell him that you really want for him to make healthy choices because you care about his quality of life and his longevity. Tell him you guys can eat his food one dinner a week but would he mind eating healthy with you the rest of the days? Maybe go on an evening walk together, ask if you an make him a whole wheat flat bread pizza with veggies instead of ordering a stuffed crust. At that point, it's going to be up to him and he'll either decide to go along with you or not. You might tell him too it would be a lot easier for you to stick to your healthy lifestyle if he'd do it with you. Anyway, just continue to be loving and supportive of him because he may be intimidated by your success. Congratulations on that by the way!

Well, definitely don't order the pizza for him. If he's going to get it, he should do the ordering. What you could do is find a healthier pizza option that you could eat together. As the other poster said, you can't make him want to lose the weight. However, don't make it easier for him to indulge in junk food. Do you guys do any activities together? ie. walking, running, hiking, tennis, anything? Perhaps if you get into an activity that you both enjoy he'll want to lose weight to be better at it.

I'm in kind of the same situation except it's vice versa with me. Before I started losing weight my husband would make comments about it and how much I had gained since we met. At the time I felt like he was making fun of me and trying to hurt my feelings, when in all reality he was sincerely concerned about me. We had went shopping and I couldn't find any pants that fit right and he knew just how miserable I really was. Just let your man know that you love him unconditionally, but you are concerned about his health and his happiness. Be supportive and NEVER say anything negative because even guys are sensitive about their weight! Good luck girl!!

Kayla

Maybe talk to him. You're changing the way you behave with him based on assumptions that are getting a little convoluted. You would be confusing me, that's for sure!

Make it a health issue. I had never pushed any of my eating habits onto my husband until he had to go for a complete physical where they checked his cholesterol. The dr. office didn't tell us he would need a 12 hour fast for it to be accurate. So, we had lunch at Burger King about an hour before and while I had a grilled chicken sandwich(no mayo,extra veggies,little mustard) and a side salad he had that triple steakhouse burger(with the patties, cheese, bacon and fried onions). They called a few days later to tell me to come pick up his prescription for his dangerously high tri's....450!!!! From that point on I told him he will not be dying on my watch and has lost 10 pounds!!! The down side is he will be getting it checked again Wednesday and I don't believe he will be wanting to stick with it after he realizes it was all a fluke

This might come across as overly simplistic, but put yourself in his shoes. Frankly, I, myself, resent "encouragement" because the implication is that you ARE fat, no matter how nice it's put. And we all KNOW we're fat (or gaining weight). We know what we basically need to do, and if we wanted the help, most of us would ask for it. Not only that, but losing weight for someone else rarely ever works out in the long run. You HAVE to want it for yourself.

Since he's lost 80 lbs in the past, I doubt that he needs any tips, suggestions, or reminders of behaviors he needs to change, since he already knows it.

I assume you ordered a pizza for him, because deep down you want him to be happy. A lot of people have a natural predisposition to reward or show love with food.

Do you pretty much do all the cooking, or cook for yourselves, or share the cooking? If you cook, just cook him what you have for yourself. If he doesn't like it, he can make something himself (like my mom used to say "take it or leave it"). That's his choice. You don't have to leave comments about his weight, just leave it at that. If he wants to eat junk, don't enable him or send him mixed messages.

He's not 4 years old, he has to take responsibility for himself and what he puts in his mouth, and if he chooses to eat junk and gain weight, you have to love him for who he is and be there for him when he does want help. Any woman would want to be treated the same.

I think the best idea is to just explain to him that it's not a superficial thing and you don't want him to lose because he's fat and he makes you look bad (which is probably what most people would immediately think), just that you want both of you to be able to live long lives together. Make it about his health. Talk to him about how much happier he was and all these spiffy things you guys can do together if he has more energy and such. Just tell him you want the family to be healthy.

Thanks guys for all the suggestions.

I do know that I can't make him want to lose weight, and also that he certainly doesn't need tips about losing. He has lost ~80 lbs twice within the last 5 years so certainly knows what it takes. I guess it is more of a maintenance issue. And simply an over-eating and over-indulging issue. We get in the swing of making healthy pizzas and such together, but it never seems to last long. He loses interest and wants "something greasy". Sometimes he just says he wants to eat a "large amount" of food. Sometimes in these cases in the past I'll make him a huge salad with lots of chicken so he feels like he is eating a lot.

I obviously don't mind that he is heavier than me. Afterall, I've been 200+ for most my life. I met him when he was heavy and vice versa. The image isn't my concern. As some of you ladies said, I am more approaching it from the health front. Gaining 25 lbs in two months simply isn't healthy, no matter how you slice it.

Anyway, I guess it is just coming to my attention because I feel guilty about enjoying his bad food for my own reasons. Again I can still have a taste of that cake, or that burger without really ingesting the calories myself. I can have him eat most of it. I'm just starting to feel guilty about it.

I definitely will put a stop to enabling it to the point of ordering the bad food for him. We will have to go from there.

It must be difficult if it`s someone so close. I embarked on a diet with my sister, but she lost nothing while I have. And I find it difficult, too.

I suppose all you can do for him is to continue to encourge him to share your healthy meals and new active lifestyle, without nagging him too much.

But does he really want it enough? If he knows how to do it, why is it not happening for him?

With my boyfriend it's kind of the same, except he's not really trying to lose weight. So I eat healthy stuff and watch him eat junk food, pizza, etc. I could nag him about trying to lose too, but he won't unless he really wants to. He sees me working out every morning (while he's sitting on the couch). I don't really encourage him to buy food that's bad for him, but I'm not going to stop him if he wants it. Like today, we went grocery shopping and I paid (he's out of work at the moment) and he asked for cheese curls. I'm not going to refuse him even though I could of said no since it's my $. I guess my point is if he doesn't want to try to lose it, don't force him. But I would make the comment "you could change" when he complains about being fat!

my bf is the same way. he is a police officer so he was once in great shape, he had to be to get into the academy. he has always been husky but he got down to his lowest weight (about 210) once when he was a senior in high school and once for the police academy, losing at least 50 lbs both times. i think it was when i got pregnant last year that he began gaining "sympathy weight" with me. needless to say i have lost the 50 lbs i gained and he has not. but my point is, like you with your bf i know he knows how to do it so i do not nag him about it. the only "rule" i have, for lack of a better word, is no junk food in the house. i cook whenever he is home (which is not too often bc he works the night shift) and the closest thing to junk we have is skinny cow ice cream sandwiches which he loves lol. but when he is out i know he eats whatever he wants and every now and then he mentions how fat he feels. i can't control how he eats when he is not home or when we go out to eat (which isn't often), so i try to control what i can by cooking when he is home, and i can only hope that he will decide for himself soon enough that he wants to get serious about losing. and he knows that when he does i will be right there with him.