I'm not overweight but i am currently trying to get back to eating healthier and exercising. i'd like to lose about 10 pounds in the process. So i've taken small steps....been baking or grilling all my food...nothing fried. I try to add veggies. I'm trying REALLY hard to not drink sodas or chocolate (both are my addictions). Been drinking water, crystal light, and sweet tea. Yea it's sweet tea but one problem at a time. LOL! I exercise in the mornings.

But this thread is more about my husband. We just got married in January and he's the biggest he's ever been. At first i liked the fact that he was bigger...he's a stocky guy. But then he started gaining weight in the stomach. He's about 6ft and 230 pounds so he's considered overweight. I don't really want him to lose too much weight....maybe get down to 200 or 210. But i'm not sure how to tell him in a nice way. He mentions his weight sometimes (how he needs to lose weight) but then he also tells me that fat boys have to eat. I tell him i love him no matter what. But i also tell him it wouldn't hurt for him to lose a few pounds....that it would make him healthier and feel better. But he eats chocolate chip cookies and whole milk before bed most every night and no exercise. He don't know it but i watered down his whole milk the other day and he hasn't even noticed...he's totally against drinking 2% milk. He says its too much like water. I figured this is sneaky but it might be the only way to show him that a gradual step down isn't that bad. Is there anything else i can do? I thought about seeing if he'll walk with me in the afternoons...i just got to find time. I work out in the mornings cause i seldom have time in the afternoons. I was hoping with me exercising in the mornings he might get motivated but....not yet. And i'm trying to cook better foods as mentioned above. Any advice?

The best way to help your husband is keep quiet, prepare healthy meals, and let him decide for himself when it is time to lose weight. No one can make the decision for someone else and there is no point in hurting him by bringing it up more than once. If you actually put water in his milk, shame on you. You robbed him of nutrition or did you buy 2% milk. The difference is part of the fat is removed.

Is your Husband very active?? I ask that because my hubby is 6'1" and he weights 280 pounds. but his BMI is only at 28.35.(for his weight and height they say it should be like 45.71.) He is a tree climber and he is very active and fit to a point. he has to be because he climbs trees free handed all day long. He burns up so many calories a day that when he gets home he eats and eats and eats..

If he is not complaining about his weight i would let him alone.. Cook healthier meals and so on. If he is like my hubby he wont even notice that you are cooking better for him. He will just smile and eat it..LOL

Good luck with everything and I hope you lose what you want as well in this process.
Take care.

I agree that you shouldn't push too much. But I think you can encourage in small ways.

Making healthier meals for the both of you (do you really need to tell him if you switch to say, lean ground beef instead of medium?) and asking him to go and walk with you, even if just for 20 or 30 minutes would be good.

My boyfriend and I have been on "health kicks" at different times and (at least for me) it can be hard to sit there and watch your other half being active and healthy and you not doing anything. So just creating that environment may have an impact too.

And the last thing is, who controls the grocery shopping in the house? I'm not suggesting you not buy what he wants, but maybe there is some modifications you can do? Can you avoid that second bag of chips or find a healthier cookie alternative? Maybe find a lower fat sweet treat he might like?

It will take time. But I would try small things slowly and see if they have an impact before really making things an issue. Good luck.

I think being open and honest about how you feel is key here. You can't make someone loose weight, they have to decide that for themselves. However, you can be supportive and talk about your feelings and worries, but do not nag. Nagging a man = stubborn behavior. You also can prepare healthier foods. Why not a healthier cookie before bed? I mean lower in fat doesn't always mean bland and pointless.

Small changes can make a huge difference in the long run. I think you're on the right track though!

I had a boyfriend once who LOVED me "chubby". I was "Chubby" when we started dating he didn't seem to mind one bit. Then all of a sudden a few months into the relationship he started trying to change me. Nagging me about my weight. At the time I wasn't ready for "Him" to change me. I dumped him like a hot potato.

Lets see, if I were you, I'd work on yourself and let him follow when he is ready. There is no better way to end a relationship than trying to change someone who you excepted "as is" previously.

well my husband is in the same boat-and for me, i just kept quiet and changed my eating/drinking habits-and he has followed-he now tells me "we dont need this or that" if it isnt good for us-i think your husband will come around if he is really concerned about his weight-i say focus on YOU

I have been in your position, and I don't agree with everyone else about keeping quiet and changing only yourself, and he will follow. My husband is 5' 10" and weighs 160lbs. I only wanted to lose 12 lbs to get back to 135. I could stay at the weight I am and not be unhealthy, but I have always had times where I go into a exercise habit, and then quit, and then get back into it- the same goes with my eating, I go into a healthier eating habit, and then go back to eating the pan of brownies, and then go back to eating healthier. We now have been both counting our calories - this is week #4, and he has lost 10 lbs, and I have lost 5 lbs. I was very frustrated with him because I saw him just eat anything and everything whenever, and he even told me that after I go to bed he would raid the cupboards, even though he wasn't hungry, he would still eat. He started getting a huge gut, and I know that isn't healthy for him. So, I always would get on him in the mornings, and ask him why did you eat that? Then I started saying things like- you want to live a long life and be around for the kids, don't you? I would give suggestions on what was a healthier choice to eat. I finally just came to him one morning and said that I think we should start counting our calories TOGETHER, and then I told him that I would find out how many he should be eating in a day, and how many I should be eating in a day, and then we just started, and now he will even say that has too many calories, or ask for suggestions on what he should eat. After you start, it is hard at first, but becomes second nature after about the 2nd week. You just have to PLAN ahead of time meals, and healthy snacks. The key thing to making this work for my husband is not being hungry. So, we have found some healthy, but still tasty- if it doesn't taste good he wouldn't do it, snacks. We still eat things that we ate before, but watch our portions. Sauces are a killer in calories, and so is cheese, if you put it on everything. I don't know why you can't tell him how you feel, and that you have to sneak behind his back to dilute his milk, because if he is going to get mad at you because you love him and want him to be healthy, then I don't think that is a good relationship. Maybe he isn't ready to change anything, and you will just have to keep making suggestions all of the time. Don't buy the stuff he wants, and make him buy it. People are too sensitive these days, and think that if they tick their husbands off, they will leave them? What is marriage about if you can't express your feelings? I'm married for better or for worse, not just if my spouse tries to change me, then I will leave. I've been married for 13 1/2 yrs, and you will have the times that are hard, but you don't leave just because of it. Sorry for the venting, but the posting that said she dropped her boyfriend, because he wanted to change her- you are married now, he isn't just a boyfriend. I didn't think that my husband would ever do this with me, but he finally did. Don't nag him, but just drop suggestions, and tell him that you would like him to do it for you, so you can stay on track. Good luck!

These ladies nailed it. Stop trying to change him. Focus on yourself and set the example. If he wants to change he will follow eventually.

It took over a year of me changing MY life before my husband really started getting on board with being healthier and losing weight.

If you push him, he will just resist or worse resent you for it. Don't be sneaky and changing his food up like the milk. That's a surefire way to ruin some of his trust and make him resentful. He has to make the decision to change himself, not you.

I have a different take on this- for one- when should she wait to say something? When he goes up to 250 lbs? 300 lbs? When his health starts to go cuz his blood pressure is too high and so on? What if she loses her attraction to him because of the weight gain? Then he could be like "why didn't you speak to me before? I didn't realize my weight gain was turning you off" and so on.

I think you should approach him in a way that emphasizes his health. My husband is 6'3" and he had gone up a bit. And I told him I was worried about his health. I said as someone who has struggled with my weight a long time, I didn't want to see HIM struggle either. He only had like 20 lbs to lose and all he did was cut out some fast food and snacking and now he's back down to 200 lbs. He himself says he probably needs to lose 10 more lbs, but I don't push because 200 lbs at his height is still pretty healthy. I still cook healthy meals at home and he's definitely benefitted from it.

For me it really was about his health, he was going out and eating a meal at mcdonald's and getting an EXTRA big mac. Nobody needs that much food, specially for one meal. I mean he gained 20 lbs in a few months!

Come to him from a concerned point of view, maybe even try to spend more time with him at night talking, taking a bath together, and so on. He might be eating more out of boredom as well.

Good luck.

I think the point they are saying is you cannot make someone loose weight because you feel they need to. They are saying to not nag and keep on about it if there is a resistance.

There is a difference between talking about feelings and "getting on a person" about what they are eating. To me that is nagging, but hey maybe that is just me lol.

I don't think that is the point. In fact I think upsetting the spouse is the least of the worries. You cannot make someone do something that you want them to do, even if it is in their best interest. When you try to change someone else it usually, not always, but usually does create a negative situation. It isn't about "ticking" the other person off. It is about being supportive and understanding that what you think is in their best interest may not mesh well with that person. If a person feels like they are being nagged or forced into something then resentment and communication breakdown can form.

I think Lori's point is that she didn't like being nagged and treated like she should change to benefit another person. She made a choice about her life that was in HER best interest. A relationship is a relationship. If you love each other and want it to work, then you'll make it work, married or not.

I'm an open person. I frequently talk to my boyfriend about my weight challenges and it is a constant struggle. My boyfriend doesn't nag me, but he always expresses his feelings to me and I him. We have no fear of upsetting each other, we do sometimes and that is normal. He wants me to be healthy, gives me suggestions, and personally I have created a zone with no boundaries as that works for me. He can express anything he wants. Yes he sometimes does upset me, but sometimes truth hurts. But I'm a person who welcomes that, not everyone is like that.

My weight loss journey has not been easy. It wasn't easier the second week or the third, and months down the road it still is a struggle. Things do not become routine for everyone and people do struggle. That is why supporting each other is important.

Nagging has never worked. And I grew up in a home where my mom treated my dad in the manner of frustrated mom's posts - my mom was quite thin and my dad wasn't, and we grew up with the constant comments, remarks and guilt-trips. It didn't work, Dad didn't lose weight, and made everyone unhappy. So this is the legacy that my mother's "caring approach" has left us. And frustrated mom should think about this -- creating the fear in her kids that their dad may die at any time ("don't you want to see your kids grow up") is not helpful to these poor kids. You got married for better or for worse, and turning into a nagging shrew isn't going to make things better. And holey SMOKES, maybe people eat as a reaction to judgement and stress in their relationship. So how can "getting on someone" POSSIBLY be helpful...
You can only do what you want to do. You can make healthy meals. You can invite him out for walks. You can see if the two of you want to get involved in a sport together. And if his weight climbs and you aren't happy, you need to get to the root of why this bothers you. You married him for better or for worse. This might be the "worse" part of the equation...
JMHO
Kira

It's one thing to be doing weight loss together, and another thing to be dragging along an unwilling participant. It's an awfully heavy load.

Until he decides that he wants to lose weight too, you really ought to concentrate on your own healthy eating. If you're in charge of cooking the meals, you can make healthier meals. If he complains, he can always cook, I say.

I don't mean that you shouldn't encourage him in eating healthier and dropping a few pounds. But all of us here know that having someone else telling you what you ought to do about your weight is not very easy to hear, and it doesn't help if you get nagged. I would bet that people who seem to be complying after being confronted like this are secretly sneaking to McDonalds when no one's watching.

I'd say, don't dilute his milk or do other things like that. Instead, buy some 2% milk and ask him to try it with his cookies one night. He may find it doesn't make that much difference. If not, at least he tried it.

Jay

There's a big difference between expressing concern about a loved one's health and nagging them to "get healthy" and then tricking them by switching up foods.

Of course express concern and offer your help if it's wanted. But after hearing about how he needs to lose weight and/or get healthy day in and day out, he's going to just turn off completely.

Put the idea in his head and then let it go. Let it stew in there for him. When I finally stopped nagging my husband is when he started to get interested on his own terms.

Or if she does the grocery shopping she could tell him the store was out of whole milk so she got the 2% instead.

Since I am the one here who does all the shopping that is what I am currently doing with my 18 year old son.

One day he even asked me if the store had *anything* he liked. Haha!! I told him it is a busy store and they are bound to be out of things sometimes.

Strangely I never hear complaining as he is chowing down on the healthier substitutes.