Is there any way to motivate the missus to lose weight? Running out of ideas...

Gigervamp

Your wife is going to need to find another way to deal with the stress caused by the kids. Kids will always misbehave and if your wife is eating chocolate and biscuits everytime they're naughty, she's going to eat herself into the grave.

Maybe CBT would help her.

BigAunty

Gra76 - how do you feel about the softer, more therapeutic approach, especially as you think stress is driving her to binge-snack?

To date, there have been suggestions for things like CBT, mindfulness, meditation, counselling, hypnotherapy, and accupuncture. Do you think she'd go for these more than strapping on her walking boots more often? They are generally going to involve 30 mins to an hour of relaxation when it's clear she currently has a total aversion to exercise.

She's asking you to be responsible for her motivation, inspiration and will-power while sabatoging virtually every advice/action that you suggest, which will eventually grind you down, as patient and supportive as you've been.

Why not hand her over to experts who have years of experience in dealing with patients with issues around obesity and emotional eating? Good ones will know how to identify and resolve the root cause, break the negative thinking and habitual automatic behaviour.

FBaby

BigAunty wrote: »

Gra76 - how do you feel about the softer, more therapeutic approach, especially as you think stress is driving her to binge-snack?

To date, there have been suggestions for things like CBT, mindfulness, meditation, counselling, hypnotherapy, and accupuncture. Do you think she'd go for these more than strapping on her walking boots more often? They are generally going to involve 30 mins to an hour of relaxation when it's clear she currently has a total aversion to exercise.

She's asking you to be responsible for her motivation, inspiration and will-power while sabatoging virtually every advice/action that you suggest, which will eventually grind you down, as patient and supportive as you've been.

Why not hand her over to experts who have years of experience in dealing with patients with issues around obesity and emotional eating? Good ones will know how to identify and resolve the root cause, break the negative thinking and habitual automatic behaviour.

Brilliant post

FBaby

OP, if you are still reading, I have been giving this issue more thoughts. I think what might help your wife are little strategic ideas that might help her. For instance, I have and always have had a sweet tooth. Biscuits are my worse. I don't think I could ever give up sugar, but know that biscuits bring such a short term comfort for bad long term consequences. What I have done is traded biscuits for lollies as I find that for 15 minutes sugar rush, I only get 50 calories in, rather than 10 + biscuit and at least 10 times more calories. Other tricks are eating cereals with 0% yogurt so that it takes longer to eat and fill me up more but no more calories that with milk. To fill the need of snacking in front of TV, I cut fruits in a bowl. It takes at least 15 minutes to go through it all! I also snack on plain breast chicken. Not overly exciting, but it does fill me up healthily.


Also, is your wife challenged driven? If she is, rather than suggesting going for a walk, why not work out a challenge, say that in 1 month time, she can go walk x distance in x minutes. Whatever works for her in a timescale she can cope with. I know that setting myself a goal certainly motivates myself when it comes to exercise.

Georgiegirl256

FBaby wrote: »

OP, if you are still reading, I have been giving this issue more thoughts. I think what might help your wife are little strategic ideas that might help her. For instance, I have and always have had a sweet tooth. Biscuits are my worse. I don't think I could ever give up sugar, but know that biscuits bring such a short term comfort for bad long term consequences. What I have done is traded biscuits for lollies as I find that for 15 minutes sugar rush, I only get 50 calories in, rather than 10 + biscuit and at least 10 times more calories. Other tricks are eating cereals with 0% yogurt so that it takes longer to eat and fill me up more but no more calories that with milk. To fill the need of snacking in front of TV, I cut fruits in a bowl. It takes at least 15 minutes to go through it all! I also snack on plain breast chicken. Not overly exciting, but it does fill me up healthily.

Also, is your wife challenged driven? If she is, rather than suggesting going for a walk, why not work out a challenge, say that in 1 month time, she can go walk x distance in x minutes. Whatever works for her in a timescale she can cope with. I know that setting myself a goal certainly motivates myself when it comes to exercise.

I find that method works well for me too. As I'm quite competitive by nature, I find that if I set myself a challenge/goal, then I'm more inclined to actually get up and do something. I actually find going out for walks quite boring personally, but if I have a reason to actually go out for one, such as I need to go down to Spar for something for example, then I find it much easier. Or like you say, set a timescale, like I'll be at such and such a position by a certain time.

Snacking I front of the TV is our downfall too. I've already started to cut html the crisps, and eat more fruit.

his_missus

Gra67 - it is difficult to be responsible for someone's motivation if they aren't in the right place to motivate themselves. I have this problem with my Hubby and weight loss. After every holiday he looks at the photos and says "I look fat, I'm going to lose weight" and after about 2 weeks he'll give up on "being healthy".

I think it's all about changing old routines and getting into new ones. Your wife needs to find a different method of dealing with the stress she feels. I don't know how old the children are or if she has no respite from them on Tues/Thur. Could she have a soak in a bath, listen to music, a quiet space to do puzzles, go for a walk?

Also, she needs to stop buying so much comfort food and find a healthier option for snacking that she enjoys. Fruit maybe. Or maybe she just needs to buy a smaller bar of chocolate and only buy one instead of a multipack.

At the moment I'm cutting down on Hubby's portion sizes, trying to serving more healthy meals and trying to cut back on treats (I buy one less bottle of wine on a Friday night, I hide the rest of a multipack so he thinks I only bought 2, I "forget" to buy crisps for his lunch so he does without ) but he doesn't know that's what I'm doing so he's not obsessing about whether he's lost any weight each week and therefore doesn't have a feeling of failure if he doesn't. Hopefully he'll eventually notice that his shirts aren't quite as tight and he needs to start re-wearing a belt.

My next step is to get him more active without him realising it...

Good luck Gra67!

Kayalana99

I just read the last post as 'his missus' on the main forum and thought she had made a side account to have her say. :rotfl:

his_missus wrote: »

At the moment I'm cutting down on Hubby's portion sizes, trying to serving more healthy meals and trying to cut back on treats (I buy one less bottle of wine on a Friday night, I hide the rest of a multipack so he thinks I only bought 2, I "forget" to buy crisps for his lunch so he does without ) but he doesn't know that's what I'm doing so he's not obsessing about whether he's lost any weight each week and therefore doesn't have a feeling of failure if he doesn't. Hopefully he'll eventually notice that his shirts aren't quite as tight and he needs to start re-wearing a belt.

I'd find that quite controlling really. I do find it SO strange that people go behind their other halves back like this....sorry I don't want to be nasty but I'd never not buy my OH crisps because he needed to lose weight..surely he should get a say in whether or not he needs to lose it.. :S

Do you at least replace it with something or is he just meant to go hungry? :S

Georgiegirl256

Kayalana99 wrote: »

I'd find that quite controlling really. I do find it SO strange that people go behind their other halves back like this....sorry I don't want to be nasty but I'd never not buy my OH crisps because he needed to lose weight..surely he should get a say in whether or not he needs to lose it.. :S

Do you at least replace it with something or is he just meant to go hungry? :S

Crisps etc are a snack, why on earth would they need to be replaced by anything? As long as a person is getting their meals and the calories needed, why would you need to add anything else on? Technically, anything extra is a snack, a treat, something we all do (some more than others) and all have, but don't need.

How can he be going hungry if she's still feeding him his meals? Somehow from what I've read, I don't think he's going hungry.

Personally, I don think it's controlling when ones partner has actually acknowledged the fact that they need to lose weight, and that they want to do something about it. Simple fact here (personally speaking from my own experience) if things are in the house, I'll eat them, if they're not, then I'm fine, I won't go out and get them, but if they're there, it's like an open invitation.

his_missus

Kayalana99 wrote: »

I just read the last post as 'his missus' on the main forum and thought she had made a side account to have her say. :rotfl:




I'd find that quite controlling really. I do find it SO strange that people go behind their other halves back like this....sorry I don't want to be nasty but I'd never not buy my OH crisps because he needed to lose weight..surely he should get a say in whether or not he needs to lose it.. :S

Do you at least replace it with something or is he just meant to go hungry? :S

Firstly, he wants to lose weight but doesn't want to put the effort in. I'm tired of having to take his photo from the neck up when we're on holiday - he looks like he's photobombing.

Also, he never complains his lunch is not enough to keep him going through the day. If he desperatley wanted a packet he could go out and buy some but he begrudges paying that much for a packet from the garage when they're cheaper in a supermarket.

Person_one

If a man abdicates responsibility for his diet to his partner and leaves her to do all the cooking, shopping etc. then they can't really complain about what they get fed as a result! I'm assuming 'his missus' wouldn't stop him if he decided he wanted to start preparing his own meals.