How to help my fiance with body issues?

In My Humble Opinion
21

One thing I can guarantee you is people do not lose weight or get in shape until they are darn good and ready to. Oh they’ll spend lots of money and spout off good intentions, but until they are ready, they will not do it.

You can’t help him lose weight or get in shape, only he can. The best you can do is go workout for yourself and ask if he wants to come with. Sometimes that may work, usually it doesn’t.

I’d be more worried this type of behaviour would carry over into other areas. Many people complain about things but few people DO anything about it.

Is this going to be just another thing, like complaining about not liking a job but not even attempting to look for one. Wanting to learn a new hobby but you can’t be bothered, and so on and so on.

But only he can change himself. Just tell him he’s OK to you and let it drop. You can’t make him happy and one thing I learned in my life is NEVER, NEVER, NEVER let anyone else dictate your happiness

22

And it’s only true in some circumstances. I’ve found that if I exercise just before dinner time, I don’t want a lot of food, and unhealthy food is unappealing. But if I wait a few hours before eating, I’m so hungry I could ride a horse. :wink:
Exercising together was a big motivator for me. Going to the gym with my ex not only encouraged us both to go, but to spend some time and get and honest to god excellent workout.

23

Livestrong has a really great calorie tracker which I have been using with regularity for the last 10 days or so. You input your weight, your activity level, how much weight you’d like to lose each week, and it tells you how many calories you should eat.

Because I’m such a fatty, I’m eating about 1700 calories a day with no extra exercise. So far, I’ve lost 9 lbs. Now, this is a lot of weight to lose in such a short time, so I’m sure things will eventually level out, but I’m just here to tell you that yes, just changing what you eat CAN alone make a difference.

What’s nice about Livestrong’s Myplate is that it breaks down what you’re eating so you can see your protein, fat, carb ratio, how much sugar you’ve eaten, sodium, and fiber. I noticed I was WAY deficient on fiber, so I’ve made a point of eating more leafy greens and changed my snacks over to Fiber One bars (9g of fiber in each bar). I’ve noticed that one of those tiny bars fills me up for a loooong time, due to the fiber in it. In fact, Kellog’s has a chocolate chip fiber bar (I think it’s called Fiber Plus) that has 120 calories, 35% of your daily fiber, and tastes exactly like chocolate chip cookie dough- no lie!

I’m also not depriving myself- last night I had a delicious, huge bowl of Mexican food goodness (homemade), but I used chicken instead of beef, low fat instead of full fat sour cream, and threw dark leafy lettuce in the mix just to add some extra healthy stuff. In fact, this is the biggest thing I’ve come to realize: yeah, I can have some crappy cheese burger for 1000 calories that will leave me still hungry in a few hours OR I can have an enormous, delicious salad with all the good stuff I like and that will keep me full all day. Easy choice.

Saturday, I went to Disneyland and because I was walking around all day, I ate a Monte Cristo sandwich (deep fried ham and cheese with sugar on top, basically), but I just made sure to eat my ENTIRE salad first, so by the time the sandwich came, I only ate half. I was too stuffed to walk, too. I had a churro, too. I barely went over my calories that day and still walked a ton.

Livestrong is a great tool- I’ve yet to find a food that wasn’t already inputted in their system, so it’s easy to use. It has tons of exercises preprogrammed, too. You can also track your water. All in all, a great thing to use.

24

Markxxx said it pretty well.

It’s great if you are supportive, but it will be most successful if HE is the main motivating force. If you find yourself reminding him all the time (to go to the gym, eat smaller portions, whatever), then it’s a problem and likely to wind up in frustration for both of you plus no lost weight.

25

Of course exercise is very important in losing weight and staying healthy, but with the constant refrain of “dietandexercise, dietandexercise, dietandexercise,” the “diet” part has been drowned out.

8 months ago, I cut sweets and sugary drinks completely out of my diet. I didn’t do it for weight loss purposes, but I should definitely lose a bunch of weight. I didn’t change my activity level. I’ve lost about 15 lbs. in that 8 months. I would say I lost that weight “healthily.”

Now, that’s not to say it wouldn’t have been better, both from a health and a weight loss standpoint, to have made additional dietary changes and started a formal exercise program, but there’s no doubt that it’s better for my health to be 15 lbs. lighter.

Or to sum it up, just “diet” or just “exercise” is much better than nothing at all.

(disclaimer–that assumes no crazy diets or extreme exercise programs)

26

Get him on a weightlifting program. The increased muscle mass combined with the calorie burn will result in at least 5-10 pounds of weight loss at his estimated BMI, and the ego kick he gets from the testosterone pump can’t hurt any either. IANAFitness guru, but I think a solid combo of free weights and isometrics will jump start your relationship.