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Husband/Wife/Spouse/Partner Not With the Program?


missmunchie

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I tried searching for this subject, but I was unable to find what I was looking for.

 

Long story short, I have an amazing husband, but he thinks this whole "elimination" think is silly and extra stress and if I just gave up candy and worked out more I would see the fitness results without having to do something so time-consuming and socially isolating. He doesn't get the other reasons I'm trying to do this (stabilize my hormones, more energy, deal with allergies, etc.). Because changing your diet is all about weight loss, right? :rolleyes: 

 

He's really cool about it as long as I make the food. He just eats what I put in front of him without complaint. But if he's in charge of dinner, it's 7-Eleven hot dogs. Plus, he's extremely social and routinely invites people over to our place for cocktails. I like our friends and I'm fine with my San Pellegrino, but I'm tired of the awkward "why aren't you drinking" conversations (pretty sure they think I'm pregnant by now) and when I need to go to bed they're still around and I don't want to be rude and leave the party.

 

I guess it's also hard because I would really love to do this with him. But since he's incredibly fit and one of those 80/20 paleo folks, there's little I can do to convince him that it would be a good change.

 

Is anyone else doing this program and receiving apathy, resistance and/or sabotage from their partner? I guess I'm just looking for people to fight the good fight with :)

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Have you looked at the Friends and Family sub-forum?  There is a lot of there about confusion, lack of support, and/or resistance from significant others, and you might find some of it helpful.

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My husband loves that this works for me but is anti-vegetable and would defend his pizza and mountain dew to his last dying breath. Just where he is right now. I never let him be in charge of dinner unless we are grilling in which case he is very willing to grill mine the way I like and let me prep my own meat. 

 

On the drinking thing...I have not personally had alcohol since about 4 months after I started dating my husband. If people ask why you are not drinking why is it so hard for them to accept that you are choosing not to? Honestly when people offer me alcohol I just say no thank you and if they ask why I just say I don't want to.

 

The bottom line is you have to do what is right for you. Don't be rude about it, be polite about it, but still put yourself first. There are all sorts of difficult sabotaging people in everyone's lives but that doesn't mean their attitude has to sabotage our efforts. 

 

I hope you can find some compromise with your husband, especially on the inviting people over. Best to approach these kinds of conversations in a non-confrontational manner when you are not actually mad about it.

 

Anyway...that feels rambley but I hope some of it was helpful. Stay strong!

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Keep doing your thing. Mine wasn't very supportive when I did mine, but he's realized that the results speak for themselves now. I look better, I feel better, and in every way I'm better than I was (although he still thinks that my gluten sensitivity is in my head). Even though I've been munching on candy and making more non-compliant stuff (bean soup mix, I'm looking at you) more lately to get rid of it (moving in 6 weeks from Europe to the US! There's a lot to use up!).

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I think you have to look at the bright side of him being fit and 80/20 so you know it is not that extreme.  I am the only one in my family of 5 eating this way.  I just make sure I can always grab something I want to eat out of the fridge in a moments notice.  So no matter what everyone else eats I don't have to worry.    I got into trouble a couple days ago when there was nothing and won't make that mistake again.  

 

The drinking thing is hard but when you need to go bed you just need to.  They will get over it if you just enjoy them when they are there.  

 

Good luck, just keep powering through.  He will see your amazing results and that will be the proof you need.  My husband saw me crash hard after eating a handful of M&M's this week.  He decided he will support me in sticking to this lifestyle.  Of course he also loves that I get up at 5 am every day (with no alarm) and make breakfast for us and then pack him a lunch he does not realize is compliant.  He has always wished I would make him breakfast and lunch and I never had the desire, energy, or motivation.  Since I'm doing it for myself now why not show him a little love(with a twinge of ulterior motive)

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Hi There,

 

I also had a completely non- compliant spouse in the begining.  Calling the Whole 30 impossible.  He even outright said that he thought I couldn't do it.  Well I did show him.

 

Now he is completely on the bandwagon - not doing one himself but tries to help me plan for my success.  He's pretty much the cook in  the house.  (Although we both love cooking) He's seen such a change in mood/and attitude alone from me that he doesn't argue with me about eating compliant food vs non compliant food.

 

He's even stood up to one our friends who called the whole 30 just merely a placebo effect.  (This friend should have been happy that I wasn't in the room with him when he said that as I would have reamed him out pretty severely [and I am not a reamer])

 

So I guess what I am saying is that wait.... give him patience and most likely he will see that the proof is in the pudding.  In terms of hot dogs and stuff.  Make sure that your freezer is stock piled full of compliant hot dogs (they do exist) for the times that he perhaps has to cook.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I went wheat and sugar free in September and at first my husband was not interested at all. He said 'I'm just going to do Weight Watchers again'. (The fact that he said 'again' is very telling.) This was something we actually had pitched battles about. I finally decided to just shut up and do the thing. When I had lost about 35 pounds, suddenly I didn't seem so crazy. When I hit 40-45 pounds, after cooking him fabulous meals for a few months, he joined me. And lost 35 himself. At the moment he is not interested in Whole30 but I'm not going to push him, he's going to eat what I cook and then maybe when I hit 75 pounds (I'm at 64 now) he might decide its not so crazy. My strategy, in short, is 'shut up and glow'. :) 

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  • 2 months later...

My husband loves that this works for me but is anti-vegetable and would defend his pizza and mountain dew to his last dying breath. Just where he is right now. 

 

Umm...I think we're married to the same guy.  :)

He acts like I'm being sneaky and malicious if I chuck some kale into the pasta sauce...

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My husband joined me for my 2nd W30, but he's not 100% compliant. But he has noticed that he has lost weight, so he's psyched. Unfortunately he travels (he's in Philly this week) but he found a Wegmans so he thinks he can stay pretty close to W30. I told him to just make the best choice available.

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My husband eats whatever I cook and since I also make chunky chilis and soups for his lunches, eggs muggins loaded with veggies for breakfast.. he is compliant all day! He does have a rare treat of popcorn and sour patch kids(ugh) about twice a month, but I let it slide because he does so well the rest of the month.

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Umm...I think we're married to the same guy.   :)

He acts like I'm being sneaky and malicious if I chuck some kale into the pasta sauce...

 

LOL...my husband would not eat it. He'll only eat Ragu Meat flavored sauce.  :rolleyes: I need to birth and train up a couple of paleo kids so we out number him. ;)

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  • 1 month later...

My BF will not join me in the lifestyle of eating Whole30.  I finished in Oct and have since continued to eat pretty much compliant.  He will however eat some of what I cook.  I fixed a slow cooker chicken curry with canned coconut milk.  He loves it..  but the other day I walked into the kitchen as he was about to reheat a bowl full..   dipping out the hardened fat from the coconut milk and throwing it down the drain!!  I told him it was "good" fat but he just won't go with it.  :rolleyes:

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My husband will eat whatever I make and likes everything so far. As long as I am eating this way he is fairly compliant (with a few off-roading episodes during the work days I suspect..). However, he does fight me on it from time to time, but mostly because he is having a hard time introducing this way of eating to his kids who are here every other weekend. I have proved to him over and over again that they eat everything (AND REALLY LIKE) I make but yet still likes to offer pizza to them. It makes me CRAZY!

The best is, I tell him some of my symptoms such as feeling my throat tighten up when I eat poorly. He thought I was crazy. The other night after dinner we ate something horrible and he says to me, "What is that thing in your throat you feel when you eat bad?" I told him my throat tightes up. He said, "Ya, mine feels the same way now too..." We both laughed!

He also mentioned to me that he told his employee who is a hard core mountain biker about the way I eat. It totally intrigued his employee because apparently his energy levels have been suffering during some of his races. Then he went out and bought the book, It Starts With Food, and is totally eating this way now. I actually get giddy like a child. It excites me THAT much to have people get it!

My husband gets it, but hasn't come around to admitting it fully yet.

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My husband still tries to tell me that I just need to moderate my choices...that everything's okay in moderation. My immediate thought after hearing that is "eating peanut butter M&Ms almost every day/Reeses' cups/cupcakes/whatever like we both do isn't moderation."

 

I'm sorry, maybe I'm just immature, but I can't do moderation. Something as delicious as chocolate needs to be eaten until I am almost sick from it. I can't do it. I will literally eat M&Ms until the thought of eating another one makes me feel like sticking my finger down my throat. It's not possible for me to do. It really isn't. I don't have a problem with some things, like alcohol. But I have a problem with delicious in all its forms. If it's a delicious pot roast, I won't take it quite so far, but I will if it's sugar or salty.

 

Someday, maybe he'll get it. Or maybe not.

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Okay, I'm floored. I just told my husband that tomorrow I'm going to start a Whole-ish 14 (with a few things that I have to discount right now). I told him that my energy has been sucking and that I've been fighting off the same sore throat for over a month and that I think it's time to kick it for good.

 

His response? I'll do it with you.

 

*shock*

 

I'm still not sure he'll do it 100%, but he said he'd eat what I'm eating. We'll see. There may be at least two times that I am 99% sure he'll be off plan during the two weeks (dinner-provided study where I'm the only one who brings something else to eat because it's Popeye's chicken, Little Caesar's, or Subway), but I'm stoked. Then again...no, I'm not going to be negative.

 

He agreed to try it.  :wub:

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My husband went for his yearly check up today. He's on several meds for cholesterol and blood pressure. He ran out of his BP meds last week, so hasn't taken it since then. His BP was 130/80, which is a bit high, but much better than it had been before he was on meds. So the doctor is changing that medication. Also, he asked the Dr about stopping the statins, and the Dr was all for it. He's going to stop for 3 months and then get tested. His numbers now are low, but he needs to get his HDL up, it was only 30.

 

We did a W30 together in October. We are offroading now, but he's permanently off grains, and no POTATO CHIPS!!! YEAH!!! He does travel a lot, so it's hard for him to stick to it all the time, but I think he's doing great. I hope his next check up is a good one.

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  • 3 weeks later...

On Saturday, my boyfriend brought up Whole 9 (he's not on the program--he's a 27-year-old triathlete who can still eat pretty much whatever he wants). He has been pretty supportive but he said that it's been hard on him because he doesn't know how to pick up quick meals for both of us that I can eat and that he just doesn't totally get why I'm doing this. To be fair to him, he did say that he knows I'm not doing it just because it's a fad and he agree to read ISWF to better understand why I don't want to eat whole food groups that people have been eating seemingly with no problems for centuries. I get where he's coming from, but I also don't want to have to feel like I'm harming my body just because it might be difficult. I know that my decisions affect others to a certain extent, but in general I'm really good about not making a big fuss about food. For example, if I'm at someone's house and they make soup with corn in it, I don't refuse to eat it. I just try to make the best choices I can. Anyone have any good suggestions on how to help him understand so he can better support me and not feel so inconvenienced by my lifestyle?

 

Thanks!!

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On Saturday, my boyfriend brought up Whole 9 (he's not on the program--he's a 27-year-old triathlete who can still eat pretty much whatever he wants). He has been pretty supportive but he said that it's been hard on him because he doesn't know how to pick up quick meals for both of us that I can eat and that he just doesn't totally get why I'm doing this. To be fair to him, he did say that he knows I'm not doing it just because it's a fad and he agree to read ISWF to better understand why I don't want to eat whole food groups that people have been eating seemingly with no problems for centuries. I get where he's coming from, but I also don't want to have to feel like I'm harming my body just because it might be difficult. I know that my decisions affect others to a certain extent, but in general I'm really good about not making a big fuss about food. For example, if I'm at someone's house and they make soup with corn in it, I don't refuse to eat it. I just try to make the best choices I can. Anyone have any good suggestions on how to help him understand so he can better support me and not feel so inconvenienced by my lifestyle?

Thanks!!

In what way can your boyfriend eat what he likes? To maintain his weight? Possibly, but unfortunately he's not magical, and food will effect him in just the same way it effects you. Weight doesn't determine health or performance - as an athlete he should be more worried about nutrition as that is what will allow him to perform optimally or not. Training for extended periods is taxing on the body, and he needs to eat an even more nutrient dense diet to counteract the effects.

You are simply choosing to primarily eat foods that promote health in your body, not foods that provide no health benefits, or negative health. You choose to care about what your food does to your body whereas others don't.

IMO, in the scheme of things, this lifestyle isn't an inconvenience. Inconvenience is hanging around for hours in dr surgeries, spending days being sick, having lack lustre energy, dying early etc.

It may be more difficult at times, it may take longer than picking up fast food or something preprepared from the supermarket, but I think the sacrifice is completely worth it.

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