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ahollars
Guest
Don’t call me “Sir”; I worked for a living. (enlisted men’s joke
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RyanBlack
Guest
No, I don’t. What I’m saying is that the reasons why people overeat to the point of obesity, while they are not as physically tangible as are your wife’s disabilities, are often very real, and extremely difficult to overcome.
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cviolette
Guest
My husband is Catholic in name only.
That is the trick of an abuser. Making you think it is because they care. They are just trying to lower you self-esteem so that they can control you and you think you are lucky to have them.
I am in great shape now because my kids are older and I am able to diet and exercise. He just finds other things to put me down about.
At the time, it was devastating. Especially, the third trimester of all my pregnancies. I have spent time in therapy and the last 6 months closely examining my marriage. I am positive that there is no love in my marriage. I am just a possession. But I have learned that it is not me, it is him and his baggage. That I am lovable. It is not because of my looks that I am a good person.
Thank you for your prayers. For the first time in my life I am happy and at peace. I owe it to God and am very blessed. I refuse to be a victim. What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
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cviolette
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I am in a much better place. But I changed. My husband stayed the same. I realize that I can only change myself and I am okay with that.
You are very lucky.I am so sorry you went through that!!!
My husband always told me I was beautiful when pregnant and a week after I had my 2nd, I was walking around the house in my underwear and he told me that I looked gorgeous.
My husband can be a jerk too sometimes, but I can’t believe that your husband would say that to you! Who does he think he is???
I think if my husband would have looked beyond the package and at the real me, he would not have just seen a big belly.I am not even sure he realized how cruel he was. For example, he would not make love to me in my third trimester. He said that is would be like making love to my brother (who was overweight). So he insulted me and my brother in one sentence. The thing is that I never thought there was anything wrong with him when he made those statements. I thought the problem was me. Now that I know he is the problem, I can build a wall to protect myself. Not the greatest way to live but it is going okay.
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Cat
Guest
Actually, a physical energy was the main cause of my ceasing to take daily walks.
When I first hurt the posterior tibialis, I didn’t know what had happened, and I blamed my painful foot on “being too fat.” (I wasn’t even over 200 pounds at that point.)
A lot of fat people blame any bodily pain on “being too fat.” A lot of fat people die of conditions that could have been treated had they gotten to the doctor soon enough. We need to stop blaming our physical pain on “being too fat.”
I kept walking and walking on it, trying to lose weight. Eventually I joined a gym and started doing a half hour on the elliptical. I lost a few pounds, but my foot kept hurting more and more, and eventually it got to a place where I couldn’t put weight on it. I had to start leaving work a few hours early to go home and ice my foot. I limped constantly.
When I finally got a doctor (a podiatrist) who diagnosed the problem, she told me that it was amazing that I had been able to do the elliptical machine. Most people who have an injury as severe as mine would not be walking at all.
The recovery took an awful long time–three months with no weight bearing at all, and then a very slow re-learning how to walk on the foot. It was almost two years before I was able to even try an elliptical machine again, and at first, I couldn’t do it at all because of my knee, which was bone on bone because of all those years of limping on my injured foot.
So YES, I do indeed believe that many obese people possibly have some kind of injury, maybe even something like flat feet (which is enough to disqualify people from joining the military), that makes it extremely painful if not impossible to do a typical weight-bearing workout like walking. And a lot of people, like me, are not swimmers, and even if they were, do not have access to a pool.
Thankfully I have insurance (another issue for many) that paid for six months/three times a week of good physical therapy–this helped me to gradually ease back into working out again. But even now, if you watch me do an elliptical workout, I will rest my right foot several times during the workout because it is simply too painful to keep going.
And I will never run. It just isn’t possible.
And when I tried ballroom dancing with my husband several times in the last year, it was just too painful. Twisting movements are pretty much impossible.
I hope this doesn’t come across as whining. Believe me, I’m not a whiner–the doctors say that I have an extremely high pain threshhold–too high, because most people would have gone for treatment a lot sooner than I did. And now I can walk over a mile and I can ride my stationary bike–it’s great to be mobile again!
But it took a LOOOOOONG time–almost four years total, to get mobile. And that’s what so many people don’t understand–you don’t lose 100 pounds or more in just a few months, in spite of what you see on Biggest Loser! It takes a long, slow time.
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Marie5890
Guest
(A bit OT from the topic, ahollars, but just wanted to share what works for me, when you mentioned your wife has spinal cord damage and hip problems. I am a chair mobile paraplegic; I used a table top hand bike that has varying levels of resistance to help get me solid cardio…Just make sure she does some decent arm/shoulder strengthening weight lifting so as to prevent bi-lateral shoulder injury…Good luck to her. It IS a challenge being physically limited, esp with legs, but it is do-able…BE Patient, consistent and persistant…and the weight will come off…promise…God Bless…You people are just grasping for straws, aren’t you?
I spent 7 years in the Army with the last 2 and a half holding the rank of Sergeant. I know how people gain weight, and I have plenty of experience in getting them to lose it! :nunchuk:
I haven’t even gotten into the personal responsiblity issues that the OP also mentioned.
For the record, my wife is pregnant with kid #6 and has put on 100 lbs since we met. However, she also has had a hip replacement and spinal cord damage, courtesy of 4 years in the Army for her. But you can best believe that she would gladly give her disability income back for the ability to exercise again. Most overweight people do not have an excuse like she does. I have worked with her trying different things, looking for something that would work, and after 9 years, we think we found it, but I always told her it was about her health and not her appearance, and she believes me.
I understand far better than you guys are giving me credit for.
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Marie5890
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AND that is one of the biggest things that people who struggle with obesity (and those that love them) have to keep remember…
It takes TIME. We have to be patient, persistent, and consistent. We live in such an “immediate gratification” age…Microwaves, email, txting, everything taking such a short amount of time, that as a culture, we lack patience, we havent developed persistence, consistencey.
We so are used to wanting what we want and wanting it sooner than later.
Many people who struggle with obesity can get the weight off if they have the right support system, right attitude, and are committed to being very patient, persistent, and consistent.
It can take many many months and even years to take off very large amounts of weight. But it can be done barring any medical conditions that truly are barriers.
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Serap
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HUGS!!!You people are just grasping for straws, aren’t you?
I spent 7 years in the Army with the last 2 and a half holding the rank of Sergeant. I know how people gain weight, and I have plenty of experience in getting them to lose it! :nunchuk:
I haven’t even gotten into the personal responsiblity issues that the OP also mentioned.
For the record, my wife is pregnant with kid #6 and has put on 100 lbs since we met. However, she also has had a hip replacement and spinal cord damage, courtesy of 4 years in the Army for her. But you can best believe that she would gladly give her disability income back for the ability to exercise again. Most overweight people do not have an excuse like she does. I have worked with her trying different things, looking for something that would work, and after 9 years, we think we found it, but I always told her it was about her health and not her appearance, and she believes me.
I understand far better than you guys are giving me credit for.
Many women get defensive b/c let’s face it, many of us are battling the bulge and we hate to admit to our own issues. We would rather become defensive.
Different issues trigger different defensive mechanisms in different people. With me, it’s when my mothering skills are questioned…I go ballistic.
Call me fat, but you tell me I’m a bad mom and I will knock you down!!!
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Lorefield
Guest
“For the record, my wife is pregnant with kid #6 and has put on 100 lbs since we met. However…”
Come off it! You admit that your wife has gained 100 pounds but it’s ok because she has a good reason? But no one else does?
You honestly do not know the mental/physical health status of the OP’s wife, so how can you insist that she (and most others) have no excuse for gaining weight? We only have the OP’s side of the story. What makes you assume that his story is 100% truthful and complete?
Come off it! You admit that your wife has gained 100 pounds but it’s ok because she has a good reason? But no one else does?
You honestly do not know the mental/physical health status of the OP’s wife, so how can you insist that she (and most others) have no excuse for gaining weight? We only have the OP’s side of the story. What makes you assume that his story is 100% truthful and complete?
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
[sign]i can’t hear you!!! Louder you worm!!![/sign]
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divinecomedian
Guest
You should continue to love your wife no matter her weight and snoring problems. However, I understand how these problems can lead to diminished intimacy. I am a married Catholic man and understand that there is a difference between how men and women feel about this situation.
I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with wanting your wife to lose some weight. Physical attraction is an essential component of sexual intercourse for men, sexual intercourse is essential for reproduction (at least if you’re Catholic, that’s the only way to reproduce), and procreation is an essential part of marriage (if the couple is capable). I agree that our society places an undue amount of emphasis on physical attractiveness, but this has also created another problem. Many faithful Catholics try to counter this shallowness by swinging the pendulum as far to the other side as possible. They almost revile any desire of physical attractiveness. This is not what our God intended. He wants us to see the beauty in each other - body, mind, and soul. To discard bodily beauty as evil is to reject one component of God’s whole design of the human body.
Granted, physical attractiveness differs from one person to the next: some people like larger individuals, some thinner, some taller, some shorter. But to say that you shouldn’t want your wife to lose weight is being narrow minded. I think it is a duty of spouses to continuously strive to be beautiful for their loved ones physically, emotionally and spiritually. I admit I am in shape physically but have let my emotional and spiritual beauty decay. However, I love my wife and will try to be a better man. She on the other hand has let her physical beauty decay through overeating, lack of exercise and lack of grooming. But she is so beautiful emotionally and spiritual. We cannot focus on one aspect of our person, but must focus on all.
On a sidenote, I don’t agree with the posters arguing that being overweight isn’t a problem. It is a very serious problem, especially in the US. It leads to myriad of other medical problems, which increases financial stress on families, communities, and the country. It also causes a decrease in productivity as it is more tiresome and stressful on the body to do even the most menial of tasks. “Mens sana in corpore sano” (A sound mind in a healthy body).
I don’t feel that there is anything wrong with wanting your wife to lose some weight. Physical attraction is an essential component of sexual intercourse for men, sexual intercourse is essential for reproduction (at least if you’re Catholic, that’s the only way to reproduce), and procreation is an essential part of marriage (if the couple is capable). I agree that our society places an undue amount of emphasis on physical attractiveness, but this has also created another problem. Many faithful Catholics try to counter this shallowness by swinging the pendulum as far to the other side as possible. They almost revile any desire of physical attractiveness. This is not what our God intended. He wants us to see the beauty in each other - body, mind, and soul. To discard bodily beauty as evil is to reject one component of God’s whole design of the human body.
Granted, physical attractiveness differs from one person to the next: some people like larger individuals, some thinner, some taller, some shorter. But to say that you shouldn’t want your wife to lose weight is being narrow minded. I think it is a duty of spouses to continuously strive to be beautiful for their loved ones physically, emotionally and spiritually. I admit I am in shape physically but have let my emotional and spiritual beauty decay. However, I love my wife and will try to be a better man. She on the other hand has let her physical beauty decay through overeating, lack of exercise and lack of grooming. But she is so beautiful emotionally and spiritual. We cannot focus on one aspect of our person, but must focus on all.
On a sidenote, I don’t agree with the posters arguing that being overweight isn’t a problem. It is a very serious problem, especially in the US. It leads to myriad of other medical problems, which increases financial stress on families, communities, and the country. It also causes a decrease in productivity as it is more tiresome and stressful on the body to do even the most menial of tasks. “Mens sana in corpore sano” (A sound mind in a healthy body).
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bunnykisses88
Guest
yikes OP… definitely makes me feel bad. my hubby and I are way over 240 pounds. but we sleep well so I have no advice there.
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Iheartcoffee
Guest
It sounds like she needs support. How about organizing family walks to the park so your whole family can get some fresh air in the evenings? Family walks are easy and don’t cost a dime. From there, you could organize some family activities that require slowly increasing amounts of exercise.
If you are worried about her health the best thing to do would be to make the road to better health fun and relaxing. Plus, family-based exercise will lead to more quality time to repair your relationship.
If you are worried about her health the best thing to do would be to make the road to better health fun and relaxing. Plus, family-based exercise will lead to more quality time to repair your relationship.
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bunnykisses88
Guest
I know that it takes a lifestyle change. starting by gradually changing things here and there… but old habits really die very very very hard… but going to the park and just having fun is a very good start
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