Getting really frustrated with DH being overweight

Horace

Maybe he is depressed and also fearful of what the GP will say to him and afraid of setting foot in the gym where everyone wears lycra. The hospital will tell him to lose weight too because carrying all that extra fat around is not healthy either for his organs or his joints.

He has to want to lose weight - if he keeps going to McDonalds for unhealthy burgers behind your back then it shows that he doesn't really care what happens to him. Plus he has stopped listening because he sees it as nagging. Must admit that I tried Slimming World (I physically could not eat the quantities of food that I was expected to eat each week) but as I do not have a great quantity of weight to lose, I have taken to exercising by going for walks around my local park and gardening. There is one chap who attended my former local Slimming World group who has lost a total of 11st 9lbs so it can be done.

I know that there is a Slimming World support thread elsewhere on the MSE forum and I feel sure that they will be able to advise especially with regards to cooking some healthy and filling foods which include some sweet treats which may help.

paulineb_2

Also, I think a sugar detox might be a good idea. Not a little of what you fancy at the moment, he can't do a little of what he fancies without eating it to excess.

Cut the refined sugars out of his diet (tough, because sugar is added to so many products but it can be done).

Sweet products aren't my downfall, savoury is where I want to overeat. But as I said before, a few days without and you create new habits.

Clean eating, with the occasional treat. Personally I don't think there are better ways to get healthy, Im aware there are other diets that use other methods, but for long term, I think he really has to de junk his diet until he can do moderation.

tesuhoha

onlyroz wrote: »

This is not true. I'm "thin" but have to work extremely hard to stay this way. I could eat whatever I liked up until the age of 30, and then gradually I put on about two stone because I maintained the same eating habits. I've now started taking much more care over what I eat, and I try to stick to 1-2 fasting days each week, and I'm now close to my old weight again. But it certainly takes a lot of will power to aovid the temptation to snack all the time.

But you were thin up to the age of 30 by not dieting and by listening to your body. That is why you can do the 5:2 diet now because you have not been a dieter and have not set up food cravings. I use the 5:2 to keep my weight down as well because as I have got older I have got into bad eating habits. I was not interested in food when I was young but there is temptation all around nowadays.

You still have that non dieters mentality because I bet you don't binge on non fast days. I don't mean a few snacks, I mean actual bingeing which is what a lot of dieters do.

tesuhoha

paulineb wrote: »

I know some thin people who have absolutely shocking diets and lifestyles, certainly not healthy at all.

You often see thin people tucking in and think that they have terrible diets but if you watch them you will see them stop eating and quite frequently leave food on the plate. My son is skinny as a rake and eats lots of take aways but he will leave food on the plate no matter how delicious. If offered a yummy dessert after a big meal he will say that he is not hungry but might have it later. Sometimes later never comes as he is genuinely not interested.

I'm not saying that it is terribly healthy to eat this way, but it does make you thin, which is what the original question was. If you know that you can eat what you want without any guilt then quite often you don't actually want it.

I think this gentleman probably feels really guilty about eating a McDonalds and because of that, wants one even more.

Personally, I find that eating more than 2 or 3 biscuits makes me feel really bloated and so I stop eating them. If I eat too much pie for dinner I get heartburn. Feeling overfull and stuffed makes me feel lousy etc, etc. Intuitive eating does work if you stop thinking about food and listen to your body it does tell you what it wants. However, having said that, I am not an angel and I do like chocolate and cake so I do indulge at times. But I do know that its my brain that wants it and not my body.

red_devil

Its a very sensitive subject telling people to losd weight. Be careful he dosent come back at you and find fault with you.

onlyroz

tesuhoha wrote: »

But you were thin up to the age of 30 by not dieting and by listening to your body. That is why you can do the 5:2 diet now because you have not been a dieter and have not set up food cravings. I use the 5:2 to keep my weight down as well because as I have got older I have got into bad eating habits. I was not interested in food when I was young but there is temptation all around nowadays.

You still have that non dieters mentality because I bet you don't binge on non fast days. I don't mean a few snacks, I mean actual bingeing which is what a lot of dieters do.

I was mainly just objecting to the "it takes no willpower" comment. I don't believe that my eating habits changed between my twenties and early thirties. The difference was having two children - breastfeeding makes you absolutely ravenous and when I stopped I suppose that my natural "portion size" had got larger, hence the weight gain. But I certainly used to eat my fair share of crisps and sweets when I was younger, without it really impacting on my waistline.

Anyway, this has little to do with the OP. To them my advice still stands - weight loss is largely about appetite control, and any would-be dieter needs to realise that feeling hungry occasionally is normal and if you don't give into the cravings then the hunger pangs will subside. That's how you get through a "fast day", along with the knowledge that the following day you're allowed a few treats.

BitterAndTwisted

He might not need to actually go on a diet or regime. He could probably shed kilos of blubber by just not constantly gorging himself.

I'd get some extra life-insurance and leave a copy of the document lying around for him to find. Plus one of his funeral-plan. Put up a photo on the fridge of him in his less-fat days plus one of him now. Tell him if he can't start looking after his health purely for his own sake perhaps he could consider doing something for you and your children while he still can. That, at the moment, what he's doing is harmful and very selfish and you're having doubts about your ability to care for him should he become an invalid, dependent upon you.

If he's really in denial none of it will make any difference anyway. Not until he's had a real health-scare.

Katem

Can you "remember" a friend of a friend of a friend's husband who's just had a heart attack and been left very ill, their family is in dire straits because he can't work/won't get any help etc?

Try not to nag and judge (easier said than done!) and sometimes people are more likely to take on "advice" if they feel they are the one who has made the decision for themselves (i.e. make him think it was all his idea). This might take a bit of crafty planning but if the end result is the same, then it's a winner.

Can you incorporate exercise as part of the family routine? Go for SUnday walks/rounders on the beach etc? Walk after dinner every night (we did this for about 6 months and the weight fell off, although we did it to get away from the kids for a bit of headspace )

delain

My OH has similar issues, I can't even figure out how to broach the subject

I know he wont listen at all and will probably imply I'm shallow even though he made it quite plain when i was bigger (but still 4st lighter than him!!) That he would prefer me to be slimmer.

globetraveller

Take a photo of him and show it to him. Sometimes you don't see what others see until you are presented with a photo. It certainly made an impact on me.
Buy smaller dinner plates. Look at Slimming world. There are so many recipes that he wouldn't even know that it is a diet recipe. If he likes things like chilli. add lots of veg to it. You can then have a mound of food but its mostly veg.
Could you challenge him to a sponsored weight loss with money going towards a charity or similar that he is interested in. This can involve loads of friends so that he feels he has to do it.
Or_ perhaps you could sit down and say how it affects you- sex life being one and suggest going to couples counselling? Could be that you just have to open up about how worried it is making you. Talk about premature death.
Just a few suggestions- you would know which is most likely to work.