The Supportive Significant Other: Love 'em AND Hate 'em!
Ever since I started taking my weight loss seriously (though admittedly I am in a major rut right now.. maybe that leads to this post), I have been trying to get my boyfriend on board, to start exercising and eating healthy. He's slim so he doesn't need to lose weight but anyone can benefit from exercise and healthy eating.
WELL, instead of a gym buddy and whole foods loving pal, I got more of the drill sergeant. I think he's kind of sick of hearing me TALK about losing weight and wants me to just DO IT. I don't blame him.
I'll suggest pizza and he'll say "NO! Stick to your diet!" I'll say I'm going to do Dance Dance Revolution for exercise and he'll say "NO! That's too easy! Do something that's more of a workout, like that Jillian video!" ... and a lot of the times I do what he says! I have this scowl on my face while I load Jillian Michaels but after I complete it I feel great! Or I'll make something healthy for dinner and think, wow, that was just as satisfying as I thought junk food would be.
I was complaining about my fat pictures yesterday (see another thread in this forum), saying some leading statements like "Don't I look bad???" and he said "Well, I think you look fine but you should just use this as motivation for losing weight." Recently I was laying around after dinner and he said "You need to go workout now. You didn't work out yesterday so you need to tonight."
I feel like I have my own Jillian Michaels! Minus the yelling and the beatings beatings beatings. But the same in the very frank straight-forward talk.
I guess I'm a little confuzzled by this new supportive boyfriend. His way of support doesn't include watching me eat pizza, lay around, or complain. If I do any of those things, he doesn't say anything negative, he'll just try to motivate me until he just finally says "I thought you wanted me to encourage you" and then backs off.
I guess my only complaint is right now I am struggling. I'm just not getting back into things and it's hard to find the motivation. When my boyfriend says "Put the cookie down and go to the gym!" I want to punch him. Not really, but I feel like saying "Butt out you buttinski!"
Anyways, when I want to quit, when I want to take a night or 6 off, I've got this guy in my ear telling me to get moving. It's a blessing and a curse.
How about the rest of you? Why kind of support system do you have in your significant other?
Gosh, that sounds really full on! If you wanted him to tone it down a little you could try to explain that everybody needs a break and a treat now and then, and that eating a cookie here and there isn't a bad thing, but it's nice to know that he'll be right there to keep you going!
my hubby wasn't the greatest support. he wanted to continue going out to eat at places that he knew would be tempting to me. he wanted to sit around and eat oreos and ice cream when he knew that i would be fighting that urge. he just wasn't the greatest. that all changed about a week ago. he went to the doctor and found out that he has two markers for sleep apnea (overweight and his neck measurement). he now has to do a sleep study and is likely going to end up on a c-pap machine at night. he came home from that visit and told me that he is too young to be on a machine for sleeping (one of my reasons to lose weight is b/c i don't want to end up on medications to regulate my body). so now guess what he wants to do?! yep, lose weight! so he apologized the other night and admitted that he hasn't been the best support. he told me that he needs my support to help him change his eating and lose weight. for now he is doing slim fast, not what i recommended, but he has to do what he wants to or he won't stick with it. we went to the grocery the other day and he was asking me to analyze labels for him, he's NEVER looked at labels before!!
so, my hubby used to be no support, but now he is moving to the other side, not because he wants to, but i'll take it! i've been wanting him to lose weight so this doctor visit is kind of a blessing in disguise.
My DH is the same way. I like it, though. I'm always so bossy, it's nice to see man exercising his authoritah'. If I were you I would take it in stride instead of getting upset about it. He's keeping you on track, and one day those good decisions and that motivation he's barking at you will become habit, and then one day you're going to step on the scale and be at your goal. Then you'll be wondering when the heck that happened because you didn't even notice.
It could be worse. Last night DH made me do two sets of 100 sit-ups (I was complaining about my stomach jiggle, and it was partial revenge for giving him a shiner on accident at kickboxing) and sat on my feet eating an entire HALF OF A PECAN PIE. When I protested the torture he simply smiled and said, "I've got a washboard. I can eat whatever I want. Ha ha."
My SO is pretty good about everything. He does try to steer me away from eating badly but is too much of a pushover to be a Jillian! Maybe I need him to be more like that though!!
I think that depending on who you are, you react to "encouragement" from your sig.other. For example, when my bf bothers me to eat better or work out, it makes me angry because I have a rebellious personality and I want to do it even LESS after he "encourages" me to do it. I call him "policeman" when he does things like that. (It expands into other areas of our life too.) I have also found that I am most successful when I am self-motivated and left alone. It's a personal preference, I guess.
NishKitten, I am a pretty bossy person myself, but for some reason I felt like with weight loss, I need someone else to boss me around. I WISH I would listen to him more. I can definitely convince him that I deserve to stay on the couch or eat 3 desserts and he just shrugs and says "Whatever, I thought you WANTED me to encourage you, I was just trying to do what you TOLD me to do."
I'm a procrastinator and a quitter and my boyfriend is NOT. As much as I want to lose weight, it's not enough of a motivator to do it on my own. When I have my bf on my side, I really do not want to let him down. I know he doesn't really care what size I am but it does annoy him when I say I want something and then don't do the work to get there (examples are losing weight and also finishing my Master's degree--been "working" on that for 6 years!).
The Supportive Significant Other: Love 'em AND Hate 'em!
If I were you I would take it in stride instead of getting upset about it. He's keeping you on track, and one day those good decisions and that motivation he's barking at you will become habit, and then one day you're going to step on the scale and be at your goal. Then you'll be wondering when the heck that happened because you didn't even notice. 
