My eating gets out of whack on weekends and on days when I am off with my husband. That's the way it is. I know some will say that he is purposely sabotaging my efforts either subconsciously or otherwise. That may be the case, it could be all in conjunction with the myriad of marital issues that we have...but I don't think so. It's a learned behavior.
When Todd and I first got together we were both
So fast forward through a marriage. Fast forward to MF decides to change her life by losing weight. I changed the rules of the marriage. I no longer want my life to be centered around food. But that was the life we created within our relationship. It's difficult. Our marriage had some major issues before this change came about. Honestly, I can say that the changes within me haven't helped our marriage...but it's necessary for me to find me, so it has to happen. It just remains to be seen where the marriage ends up.
But I digress. So you see, I don't think Todd is being malicious....he's just simply living and operating under the lifestyle that we set up so many years ago. He isn't being malicious when he asks for waffles in the morning and tacos at night (how does one keep their calories under control with both of those meals in one day?). He is just asking because that is how we have always operated.
So the question is this. How do I fit my lifestyle in with what I want . How do I make the changes I need to make so that we are both happy and ok with everything.
I have always said that I want to live a life where I can eat the waffle and where I can have the tacos the pizza, and the ice cream. I know, moderation. I want to eat 'normal' foods....normally. Changing my food to a special diet is NOT a sustainable method. I have to figure out how to eat normally...FOR LIFE!
So on to one other thing that's been floating through my head. Years back, I was in and then led a few weight loss challenges. I had gotten into the habit of signing off of every email with the line........Think Thin. I was thinking about the other day and then this morning a friend sent me a text encouraging me to not go totally crazy while eating out and her last words of the text was "Think Thin" Oh my word.........of all the words she could have used. So THINK THIN.......we need to think thin. Think thin when we are ordering our food. We need to 'think thin' when we are getting ready to snack at home. We need to 'think thin' when we are packing our lunches to take to work. We need to 'think thin' when we are vacillating between going to exercise or skip it. If we are thinking thin, we will make 'thin' conscious decisions. Thin conscious decisions will lead us to our goal weight! We need to THINK THIN.
What about making healthy versions of those things for the most part? Tacos can be very healthy is you change a few things, for example? What about taking a healthy cooking class together, change the dynamic of the food relationship?
ReplyDeleteBTW, I just wanted to let you know that while I'll still be reading, I just don't have time to fight with the verification anymore, so as long as you have that I won't be able to comment. Sorry, but I am reading! :)
That's good, easy to remember, reminder. Thank you! (PS - verification not that big a deal.)
ReplyDeleteHi Mary Fran, All of what you described about about you and your husband's eating relationship--exactly the same for my husband and me for most of our marriage. To the tee.
ReplyDeleteWhen I changed how I ate, for the first months when I decided that we would need to eat entirely differently, my husband was very resentful and just po'ed about it. Those first months were very stressful, but I told him to just go eat out with our teen son, who would enjoy it more. Gradually, he did accept my lifestyle change. However, it did significantly change our relationship. Eating out, as we did, was like getting a drug high together. Lots of food zing, which we sort of attributed to us being together, when it was actually a chemical rush from food. Since then, my husband does not exercise or eat healthy, so we have in significant ways, parted our beliefs. Sometimes, we eat the same foods, but more often, we do not. But I had to face the fact that I loved eating all-you-can-eat, which is most restaurant portions at all restaurants these days, and that has nothing to do with me loving anyone. I hope that we can instead go walk by Lake Michigan or something un-food related thing as a couple, but thus far, he's usually not interested. We still go to the Half-Price book store together. :-)