If your significant other dislikes your health efforts?..
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Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.
Today's post: Monday, 5-21-2007
What if your significant other dislikes your health efforts?….
Last Saturday, this letter was in Dear Abby.
“DEAR ABBY: I lost quite a bit of weight on a great diet that worked well for me. I did it for my health and because I was tired of carrying all that extra weight around. Everyone has been complimentary, except my husband.
He accuses me of "setting a bad example" for our kids, complains that the diet "costs too much," and says we can't share a meal at a nice restaurant together anymore. (Not true!) He also makes unwanted comments about what I'm eating, how much I'm eating and when I'm eating it.
I have invited him to go on the diet with me, because he could stand to lose about 20 pounds himself, especially around the middle. He refuses and insists that all he needs to do is exercise. Well, it hasn't worked, and now he needs to buy larger clothes while I am able to get into the clothes I wore when we first met.
I thought my husband would enjoy the new me, and now I am wondering what could be wrong. Jealousy? Fear of losing me? What's your opinion? -- PUZZLED BUT STILL GOING STRONG.”
Dear Abby's answer was good. She strongly supported this woman's efforts to eat right & be healthy. And, she encouraged her to keep doing it.
I agree totally & think that was the right place to start. But the answer wasn't as strong on positive ways to respond to her husband & to solve the problem she wrote in about.
(To be fair, in the space available, that may be all Dear Abby could fit in.)
Here's some extra ideas.
Since he might feel threatened that she looks better, without overdoing it, she can let him know she does care for him & that she does value him. (It sounds like that's the case.)
Here's a way she can give HIM the response she'd like.
She'd like a positive response. Here's a way she can give him one.
The evidence is that unless someone is very heavy, exercise may be more important for good health than losing weight.
Somewhat fat people who exercise have better health than people who are skinny & don't exercise. (Recent research even shows that such skinny people ARE fat but inside where it does health damage and doesn't show up visually.)
So, if he IS exercising, she might improve things if she gives him her enthusiastic support for his exercising.
If HE wants to lose the 20 pounds, the Weight Watchers points system, that is based on considerable experience, shows that if he also eats less, that will work.
So, will more exercise, particularly if it's strength training. But it takes so much more that for most people it's more practical & effective to eat less.
(I was exercising but was more than 20 pounds overfat. And, by cutting back calories enough by eating MORE vegetables to lose what I expected be 10 pounds, I lost 30. What I did wasn't hard, so I've kept doing it & have kept off 20 of the 30 pounds.)
But 20 pounds is not a lot, so if he is exercising, it might help him to be OK with her losing weight to not bug him if he doesn't want to make that effort now; but give him positive strokes for his exercise instead.
And, it might help for her to ask for his ideas on what exercise he'd recommend for her to do.
If she takes his advice & thanks him for it, that might also help.
Lastly, good restaurants will take requests like substituting a vegetable dish for mashed potatoes or French Fries or white rice. Some will even bring a small fresh fruit dish instead of bread if asked. And, more people are making such requests.
However, men do often like to eat well without worrying about what they eat when they are celebrating. So, it will also help if she supports him & helps him feel festive instead of crabbing about what he is eating.
The fact that he IS exercising is more important.
And, if he decides later to make the effort to lose weight through diet also, he will have her good example to follow.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective. We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.
Today's post: Monday, 5-21-2007
What if your significant other dislikes your health efforts?….
Last Saturday, this letter was in Dear Abby.
“DEAR ABBY: I lost quite a bit of weight on a great diet that worked well for me. I did it for my health and because I was tired of carrying all that extra weight around. Everyone has been complimentary, except my husband.
He accuses me of "setting a bad example" for our kids, complains that the diet "costs too much," and says we can't share a meal at a nice restaurant together anymore. (Not true!) He also makes unwanted comments about what I'm eating, how much I'm eating and when I'm eating it.
I have invited him to go on the diet with me, because he could stand to lose about 20 pounds himself, especially around the middle. He refuses and insists that all he needs to do is exercise. Well, it hasn't worked, and now he needs to buy larger clothes while I am able to get into the clothes I wore when we first met.
I thought my husband would enjoy the new me, and now I am wondering what could be wrong. Jealousy? Fear of losing me? What's your opinion? -- PUZZLED BUT STILL GOING STRONG.”
Dear Abby's answer was good. She strongly supported this woman's efforts to eat right & be healthy. And, she encouraged her to keep doing it.
I agree totally & think that was the right place to start. But the answer wasn't as strong on positive ways to respond to her husband & to solve the problem she wrote in about.
(To be fair, in the space available, that may be all Dear Abby could fit in.)
Here's some extra ideas.
Since he might feel threatened that she looks better, without overdoing it, she can let him know she does care for him & that she does value him. (It sounds like that's the case.)
Here's a way she can give HIM the response she'd like.
She'd like a positive response. Here's a way she can give him one.
The evidence is that unless someone is very heavy, exercise may be more important for good health than losing weight.
Somewhat fat people who exercise have better health than people who are skinny & don't exercise. (Recent research even shows that such skinny people ARE fat but inside where it does health damage and doesn't show up visually.)
So, if he IS exercising, she might improve things if she gives him her enthusiastic support for his exercising.
If HE wants to lose the 20 pounds, the Weight Watchers points system, that is based on considerable experience, shows that if he also eats less, that will work.
So, will more exercise, particularly if it's strength training. But it takes so much more that for most people it's more practical & effective to eat less.
(I was exercising but was more than 20 pounds overfat. And, by cutting back calories enough by eating MORE vegetables to lose what I expected be 10 pounds, I lost 30. What I did wasn't hard, so I've kept doing it & have kept off 20 of the 30 pounds.)
But 20 pounds is not a lot, so if he is exercising, it might help him to be OK with her losing weight to not bug him if he doesn't want to make that effort now; but give him positive strokes for his exercise instead.
And, it might help for her to ask for his ideas on what exercise he'd recommend for her to do.
If she takes his advice & thanks him for it, that might also help.
Lastly, good restaurants will take requests like substituting a vegetable dish for mashed potatoes or French Fries or white rice. Some will even bring a small fresh fruit dish instead of bread if asked. And, more people are making such requests.
However, men do often like to eat well without worrying about what they eat when they are celebrating. So, it will also help if she supports him & helps him feel festive instead of crabbing about what he is eating.
The fact that he IS exercising is more important.
And, if he decides later to make the effort to lose weight through diet also, he will have her good example to follow.
Labels: diet, eating out, exercise, fat loss, weight loss
posted by David at 1:36 PM
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