Let's talk about fat.

[seeingeyes]

I don't eat till I'm bursting and ready to explode, thankfully lol. My husband sometimes does, but he's getting better about that, too. I just consistently eat more than I need to, and it's rarely because I'm actually hungry, it's almost always a mixture of longtime habits and thinking that I absolutely must have enough food to make me full (ie, really satisfied, not bursting) or... or what? The world will end? I'll be in agony? What am I trying to avoid, really? It's like my brain is wired to avoid hunger at all costs. And I'm actively trying to re-wire it into different thinking! Again, I'm not snarfing chips and cookies and pizza; I actually hate that stuff. But even if I'm eating like, a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread, I'll feel like I need to eat two sandwiches instead of one. Or if I have a nice salad, I feel like I need to put something on the side, like some chicken or pasta, as if the salad just won't sustain me. I actually make really healthy food choices in general, that's not my problem. It's the portion sizes and the compulsions that I have to battle.

Yeah, you're not alone in that!. There's a great community on reddit (Lose the Fat), and they talk about that "what if there is no next meal?!" feeling a lot.

Like I said, I don't have a big weight battle myself, but I've had some craziness, too. When I started counting my calories, I found out that half of my daily calories were coming from beverages. Half. That's nuts. I cut the soda, dropped the juice, started putting less sugar in my tea, quadrupled my water intake, and started ingesting, you know, actual food. lol

 

[Inkachu]

I found the same thing. You think "Oh, 100% fruit juice, that's SO healthy!" But then you see it has 300 calories lol.

I drink mainly water, sometimes tea, rarely juice, and a little soda here and there. I prefer "real" sodas (like Pepsi Throwback made with actual sugar and not HFCS, or best of all, Blue Sky organic soda!) instead of diet. I'd rather have calories than the chemical concoction in "diet" sodas. I've also just recently completely stopped drinking dairy milk and have switched completely to almond milk.

 

[seeingeyes]

I found the same thing. You think "Oh, 100% fruit juice, that's SO healthy!" But then you see it has 300 calories lol.

I drink mainly water, sometimes tea, rarely juice, and a little soda here and there. I prefer "real" sodas (like Pepsi Throwback made with actual sugar and not HFCS, or best of all, Blue Sky organic soda!) instead of diet. I'd rather have calories than the chemical concoction in "diet" sodas. I've also just recently completely stopped drinking dairy milk and have switched completely to almond milk.

I cut back the soda to half a can a day. Every time I tried to go cold turkey, I would get a headache that would eventually lead to a migraine. Sooo not worth it. So I drink soda for medicinal purposes.

It's been almost a year, now, so I might try cutting it completely again soon.

 

[Inkachu]

ROFL!! I get the same thing when I cut out sugar and carbs, I start "detoxing" and you DO get headaches and body aches and the whole caboodle. But then, once I'm cleaned out, if I go back and splurge on something rich, I feel the same way; headache, tired, etc. Craziness.

I sometimes get a bottle of Coke and just sip on it through the day. No chugging allowed. And I'll force myself to chase it with water. That allows me to enjoy the taste and the fizz and I'm not over-doing it, and I'm still hydrating with water. I can really tell the difference when I'm ignoring water, I feel horrible.

 

[akmom]

Oh gosh, every single New Years, my husband does the same thing. He quits drinking soda for a month, cold turkey, and complains about headaches, being tired, etc. I end up having to give him massages and keep our bedroom dark and quiet just so he can handle it. It's like watching a drug addict detox. I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad if he did it gradually, or just drank fewer than six cans of soda a day to begin with. I don't even see a point, since he isn't trying to quit for good. But he does it every single year.

 

[Hetta]

My husband is going through this right now. He's a "Clean your plate...And everyone else's!" kinda guy and he's trying to feel out the difference between "full" and "oh, I'm bursting, can't move!"

My husband does that too. He makes me crazy.

He eats and eats and eats and the complains for an hour that he's about to burst and he won't eat again for 2 days.

<eye roll>

 

[Inkachu]

I have no further comment, lol.

 

[Hahner Reid]

First of all, if the only thing you care about is your spouse's body fat percentage, you're doing it wrong. Let's just get that out of the way.

But the other extreme, that body fat has (or should have) no effect on a marriage is also incorrect. (If my husband were 700 lbs and confined to bed, you can bet that I won't bring bringing him buckets of fried chicken every five minutes, and he sure ain't getting laid.)

There are all kinds of things in this life that can drastically and suddenly affect one's appearance: Car accidents, amputations, getting an anvil dropped on one's face. But fat is one that is actually controllable.

So what responsibility do we each have to stay (or return to) approximately the same shape that we were when our spouse was initially attracted to us?

Haven't read the whole thread, but.....

My POV: we should do the best we can to take good care of our bodies, and our weight will naturally reflect that. That to say, do the best we can with what we have and then WORK it.

No one has the same body as when they were 25 or whatever, I don't care how much exercise happens. But my husband has always appreciated the effort I give. He's just happy that I'm trying to take care of myself. Seeing that, he couldn't care less about the stretch marks, etc.

 

[NewUser777]

So what responsibility do we each have to stay (or return to) approximately the same shape that we were when our spouse was initially attracted to us?

If you are married, you have a huge responsibility to maintain your body. There is no bigger turn-off than "I don't care".

As noted in other posts, after a certain age, your body will not remain in good shape by doing nothing. It takes work. And if you don't put in that work, you are just hurting yourself. Walk up a flight of stairs and feel like you will pass out? Get in that gym and get that body toned! No excuses will be tolerated.

I sit at a desk for nearly 8 hours every day. That is not good for one's body and I started feeling the negative effects. I started going to the gym and working out and the negative effects went away. Now, I'm hotter than I've ever been.

 

[russianorth]

I find that most people need a serious health scare to motivate them to make life style changes.

 

[russianorth]

Oh gosh, every single New Years, my husband does the same thing. He quits drinking soda for a month, cold turkey, and complains about headaches, being tired, etc. I end up having to give him massages and keep our bedroom dark and quiet just so he can handle it. It's like watching a drug addict detox. I'm sure it wouldn't be so bad if he did it gradually, or just drank fewer than six cans of soda a day to begin with. I don't even see a point, since he isn't trying to quit for good. But he does it every single year.

[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse] 6 cans a day even of diet soda is aweful. Cant he just switch to black coffee and bleach his teeth?

 

[Andrea411]

We stopped drinking soda (hubby and I) about 2-3 years now and if I taste it now, its lousy. Once in a while I sip a little root beer but only about 2-3 oz.
It really is like poison in your system. I have been trying to change our entire menu to an anti-inflammatory diet. My husband who has always been very healthy started getting bouts of gout. I felt so bad for him. When we changed our diets... and its not the gout diet (thats not healthy at all) he doesn't have to take any meds and hasn't had the gout in a year. Thank you Jesus!!!

 

[bhsmte]

We stopped drinking soda (hubby and I) about 2-3 years now and if I taste it now, its lousy. Once in a while I sip a little root beer but only about 2-3 oz.
It really is like poison in your system. I have been trying to change our entire menu to an anti-inflammatory diet. My husband who has always been very healthy started getting bouts of gout. I felt so bad for him. When we changed our diets... and its not the gout diet (thats not healthy at all) he doesn't have to take any meds and hasn't had the gout in a year. Thank you Jesus!!!

I assume it wasn't diet soda, correct?

Drinking non-diet soda is one of the worst things you can do. it is loaded with sugar and causes your blood sugar to elevate dramatically and then drop once insulin is released. When the insulin does it's work, your blood sugar is low again and you have the desire to either eat to get it back up, or drink another soda.

 

[Inkachu]

I'd rather drink regular non-diet soda with some sugar in it, than the chemical bath that is diet soda! I really prefer organic sodas when I can find them, as they don't have HFCS but actual, organic sugar. I'm not a major soda drinker anyway, though, so it's not much of an issue for me. It used to be... I was bona fide addicted to diet soda for a long time. Now it tastes awful to me.

Still doing my daily 1 mile walk, and the scale is slowly responding. Trying to be optimistic about the little victories, but it's hard.

 

[Andrea411]

I assume it wasn't diet soda, correct?

Drinking non-diet soda is one of the worst things you can do. it is loaded with sugar and causes your blood sugar to elevate dramatically and then drop once insulin is released. When the insulin does it's work, your blood sugar is low again and you have the desire to either eat to get it back up, or drink another soda.

We stopped drinking all soda and all diet drinks. I didn't realize when I posted on this thread it was an anti-fat people thread... ugh. I will unsubscribe.

The last I heard the Lord was looking on the inside not the outside....
We have changed our diets to be healthy not to be thin. My husband has always eaten a lot of food and never gained more then 20 lbs over his high school weight. I on the other hand go back and forth 100 lbs. (originally I gained weight with pregnancy then I gained 80 lbs due to a medication I was on for epilepsy... doctor didn't tell me that was one of the side effects)
NO more diets!!! We eat to stay healthy. I am healthy and relatively happy at the weight I am today. I refuse to buy into the thin thing any more. My husband loves me and we have agreed we only care about our health.

 

[Inkachu]

We stopped drinking all soda and all diet drinks. I didn't realize when I posted on this thread it was an anti-fat people thread... ugh. I will unsubscribe.

The last I heard the Lord was looking on the inside not the outside....
We have changed our diets to be healthy not to be thin. My husband has always eaten a lot of food and never gained more then 20 lbs over his high school weight. I on the other hand go back and forth 100 lbs. No more diets. We eat to stay healthy. I am healthy and relatively happy at the weight I am today. I refuse to buy into the thin thing any more.

Sorry you got ran off... there is a lot of negativity in this thread, but maybe we can push it in a more civil direction?

 

[mkgal1]

We stopped drinking all soda and all diet drinks. I didn't realize when I posted on this thread it was an anti-fat people thread... ugh. I will unsubscribe.

The last I heard the Lord was looking on the inside not the outside....
We have changed our diets to be healthy not to be thin. My husband has always eaten a lot of food and never gained more then 20 lbs over his high school weight. I on the other hand go back and forth 100 lbs. No more diets. We eat to stay healthy. I am healthy and relatively happy at the weight I am today. I refuse to buy into the thin thing any more.

Your posts, Andrea, are right in line with what the thread has become (I'm hoping that's what the discussion has turned towards).

There's one doctor (Dr. Hyman) that says, "food is information to our body"....so it's great you've figured out what foods work well for your husband. I know lots of people that have been able to get off the medications they were on, simply by changing what they eat (and it's not always the obvious things like soda and cookies). A lot of times, what we believe are "good for you" foods (like soy burgers or yogurt) are worse than what we're substituting for (IME).

 

[Andrea411]

Sorry you got ran off... there is a lot of negativity in this thread, but maybe we can push it in a more civil direction?

I think this thread is way past that... I wouldn't want people with weight issues to read through this mess. The last thing someone who has an eating disorder needs is guilt. The Lord doesn't motivate us by guilt, it does't work. if it was will power, there wouldn't be a problem either.

This nation adds chemicals to most of its meat to fatten them up faster... that gets past on to you when you eat it... duh??? what do you think will happen. Why do you think an entire generation has become obese at the same time these practices began.

 

[Inkachu]

Great points, Mkgal. Take some time to learn about nutrition and the human body. Pay attention to how you feel after eating and drinking various things. Try the occasional fast or cleanse and see if you feel a difference in your overall well-being. Particularly pay attention if you suffer from inflammatory disease (arthritis, asthma, allergies, etc). The more raw and unprocessed your food is, the better. The more steps there are between your food's source and your mouth, chances are the less healthy it's gonna be. Think about how people have been eating for thousands of years; it wasn't all this over-processed stuff full of sugar and preservatives and artificial junk. They drank water instead of ten cups of coffee and a 2 liter of soda every day. They ate fresh and local foods. They didn't buy meat from a factory-like beef farm in another country, they bought it from the butcher in town who got it from the local farms down the road. They didn't eat produce from South America that was grown in a greenhouse and slathered in pesticides, they ate whatever produce was growing in their area. Think FRESH and LOCAL whenever you're planning your meals.

God designed our bodies to be sustained from the earth, not from factory-produced products. Just something to think about.

 

[Inkachu]

I think this thread is way past that... I wouldn't want people with weight issues to read through this mess. The last thing someone who has an eating disorder needs is guilt. The Lord doesn't motivate us by guilt, it does't work. if it was will power, there wouldn't be a problem either.

This nation adds chemicals to most of its meat to fatten them up faster... that gets past on to you when you eat it... duh??? what do you think will happen. Why do you think an entire generation has become obese at the same time these practices began.

Well, for what it's worth, I hope you'll stay and contribute your thoughts and experiences to the thread It doesn't have to remain a negative conversation.