Nobody can understand...

[abz]

unless they've had to do it themselves.

i was trying to explain to my OH last night that unless a person has really struggled to lose weight, they can't understand how difficult it is, how you have to fight yourself every second of every day, how down you feel sometimes, how up you feel sometimes. how the guilt gets you just for eating something, how you then eat more to make yourself feel better. how difficult it will be having to continue eating, even thought it was an addiction, you can't give up on it forever, you have to learn to control your addiction.

my OH has seen me bawl my eyes out, yell and scream, laugh manically at the scales and dance around the house in a new dress. he's seen everything that it has put me through so far and knows that he can't truly understand it.

so why can't others accept that this is something we battle through, something that is incredibly difficult, something that we wish we didn't have to do but fight to do every day and support us in that? i hear so often stories of people saying 'well you just eat less' and 'it isn't healthy' and 'a little bit won't hurt'. you wouldn't say that to an alcoholic...

it was just my thought for the day. was just wondering if anyone else had been thinking the same thing...

abz xx

 

[misscheeky]

I think your right hun, unless you have been there then you truly dont have a clue what your going on about. adam is 10 and a half stone and like id say oh i lost so much this week blah blah blah he's say great and be supportive and delighted for me...but i have a long way to go.,id say oh im fat he's say ur not i love u blah blah i just say u dont know what its like to be fat youve never been fat.

 

[thinkthincd]

Bloody good post Abz!

And sooooo true, now i've shifted 4.5 stone everyone is trying to convince me to come off the diet. I have given in to an extent but only on the advice of my cdc and moved up the plans. BUT all my family and friends keep saying..."well surely you can just eat healthy food now and go to the gym!" i want to say "Well surely if i could i would have done it by now"

They don't understand why i want to "deprive myself" and i don't understand why they can't see that i want to be a size 12 not a 16, and that i've come this far and found something that works why can't i see it through to the end.

Even my hubby is on at me now, its getting me down a bit to be honest!

xx

 

[thinkthincd]

My hubby did say though " i wish we could just get our life back" and i said something about losing weight for me and him and he said "i can't love you any more just because you are smaller, i love you whatever you are" Bless!

xx

 

[abz]

i did have the overwhelming urge to sod it off the other night. not through cravings or anything else. i just wanted to take OH out for a nice meal. i feel like the poor guy has been crammed up with me being a b*tch for months now. but we just cuddled up and watched a film instead. but i'm really looking forward to being able to go and and eat again. healthily of course, ha. but it was one of our favourite things to do.

my OH is six foot two, and weighs just under 11st 7. he wants to be 11. when i met him he was 12 and it did take him an age to lose his half a stone bless him, but then he was still eating pizza etc so he didn't get any sympathy from me, ha. but he is a gardener and works manually for 9 hours a day, so of course he burns off what he eats these days.

 

[misscheeky]

adam eats lots of rubbish and doesnt seem to gain anything. he has big dinner every lunch time and dessert work pay then he is pretty much on the road then the rest of the day i just cant understand it!!!!!!!!

 

[thinkthincd]

My oh is the same, can eat like a pig....no weight gain!

These men!

 

[emmie83]

My DH is exactly the same!! hes very surportive ie "well done babes" but he jsut doesnt understand we had a row last night about my weight (again only thing we ever argue about!!) he said although he was proud that i was doing well you couldnt really tell yet so would i stop going on about it and jsut do it!! he says he thinks you should just do what you want and have what you want and be happy but whens he going to get that doing that doesnt make me happy?!?! hes tall and thin and never has to worry about what hes having so will never understand!!!!! he ended up stomping off upstairs and leaving me upset downstairs he did come down and say sorry later but its not the point!!

im sick of everyone saying ooohh its dangerous ooohh how can you do that to yourself ooohh its stupid (mil in perticular i think she likes to see me fatter than her!!) when are people going to get im doing it for me not them!!!!

ok rant over!!! x x x

 

[spod]

I hate the "a little bit wont hurt..." comments. I have said "NO" and I mean "NO". There is a reason why I said it, so accept it and move on.

I find it scary to hear of men who are 6ft + / rugby players etc who weigh less than me. It makes me realise how over weight I am / was....

xx

 

[susan70]

My oh is in denial, he eats anything and everything and has put on weight since we have been together but he still wont admit he should lose his weight, hes by no means 'fat' hes over 6ft and about 16st so carries it well but even so he just wont admit he should not eat the things he does.

Men dont have the same pressures on then regarding weight as women do so just dont understand how we feel.

 

[abz]

i hate it when people try to convince you to have something to. don't they realise how much effort it takes to say no in the first place? it's so easy to give in if they keep at it...

and why the hell are we all with tall skinny men!!?! hee.

abz xx

 

[emmie83]

im blaming DH i WAS thin when we got together!!!! its ALL his fault!!!

 

[DQ]

It is such a weird and touchy subject. One of the things my ex felt he could finally say when we split up was how he couldn't understand why I hadn't just lost the weight - I had all the right reasons for doing it - the kids, my health, etc - and yet I never did it.

And as we were splitting up I was able to say that him sabotaging me, refusing to eat unless I ate, buying my favourite chocolates and sulking if I didn't eat them/wouldn't accept them, etc sure didn't help me when I tried to do it the first time.

The first time I did CD he was convinced I was losing weight to leave him - I lost nearly 7 stone in five months and he was petrified. We argued every single day that I successfully did SS - he even went so far as to say that I obviously didn't care about the state of our relationship since I was a comfort eater and I wasn't eating

Sorry, not sure where that rant came from

 

[pete10141748]

Men dont have the same pressures on then regarding weight as women do so just dont understand how we feel

*puts his hand up slowly and whispers*
i do....

But I agree that society places far greater pressure on women to be thin than men (case in point; you need to have Eva Longoria to advertise the new "sexy" Magnum icecream, but it's perfectly OK to have overweight-bloke "Barry Norman" advertising Cillit Bang! )


I don't think it's so much that "men" in general don't understand it, it's men who have never had a weight issue with themselves who don't understand it.

My brother is like this; 6ft, about 12.5stone but quite muscular and athlecticly built (football captain, hockey captain, golfer, lifeguard...when we were younger we often joked how he's the sporty one and I'm the brainy one ) so he looks like he should only be about 10stone.

As such, he has no idea what it ‘s like to try and lose weight, because he’s never done it. He may not understand what it’s LIKE to do it, but at least he can understand WHY I want to do it, and supports me that way, which is fine by me.

Both my parents regularly try and fail with the “we’ll just be good” routine, and as much as I have tried to tell them otherwise, they are adamant that it will work at some point, but at least they know what it’s like to try and lose weight, so the support I get from them is fantastic.


But you can compare it to anything I suppose – those of use who have never been addicted to smoking have no idea what giving up that habit involves, same goes for alcoholics and cocaine addicts.

I guess dealing with an addiction/disorder is just one of those personal/internal battles around your personality and habits, which isn’t something everyone can see or comprehend.

 

[susan70]

why do men always make things about them , i wanted to lose weight for me but he felt i had seeked his approvel by saying im behind you 100% then my bil said one night you will be off on the pull now you have lost weight which in turn started oh off on are you gonna leave me stuff, why cant people accecpt im still the same person now on the inside that i was when i was 5st heavier.xx

ooo that wasnt supposed to be a rant either.lol

 

[susan70]

But you can compare it to anything I suppose – those of use who have never been addicted to smoking have no idea what giving up that habit involves, same goes for alcoholics and cocaine addicts




the only thing with other addictions suah as smoking and drugs is that you can take those things out of your life totally, im not saying its easy but with food you cant remove food from your life forever so i think it makes it harder.

 

[andju]

It is such a weird and touchy subject. One of the things my ex felt he could finally say when we split up was how he couldn't understand why I hadn't just lost the weight - I had all the right reasons for doing it - the kids, my health, etc - and yet I never did it.

And as we were splitting up I was able to say that him sabotaging me, refusing to eat unless I ate, buying my favourite chocolates and sulking if I didn't eat them/wouldn't accept them, etc sure didn't help me when I tried to do it the first time.

The first time I did CD he was convinced I was losing weight to leave him - I lost nearly 7 stone in five months and he was petrified. We argued every single day that I successfully did SS - he even went so far as to say that I obviously didn't care about the state of our relationship since I was a comfort eater and I wasn't eating

Sorry, not sure where that rant came from

Really good thread,my Oh seems to be very supportive until I am on here,he constantly huffs and puffs,doesnt understand when he is eating dinner I would rather be distracted and coming on this site is perfect,yesterday he bought me flowers,I got in a bit of a moody with him as he wouldnt let me on here and went mad when I asked as he was playing a game,I just asked if he could leave it logged on and not turn it off but he said it started running updates so he Had to turn it off!!!He has started reading my texts and seems to check up on me all the time!!What fun!!
xx

 

[DQ]

Yeah, Rob had a thing about the internet forums I used for support - was convinced people were encouraging me to dump him (well they were, but not cos i had lost weight :giggle: )

 

[Grrlscout]

I think it's because men lose weight so much easily than women do, overall. A man's metabolism is something like three times a woman's. A woman skips dinner and is cranky and hungry. A man skips dinner and drops two pounds. So he turns to the woman and says "why are you complaining? All I had to do to lose two pounds was to skip dinner!"

My husband was being supportive in the "yaaay, good job" way, but when I'd talk about having a really hard day on the diet, he'd kind of blank it out. My main struggle used to be variety - the same flavours all the time gets a bit old. I convinced him that he needs to taste the packs I'm eating to see for himself what I'm talking about. Works a treat!

I know what y'all mean about the pressures to go off the diet. Aside from insecure spouses, do you find that most of the people giving that pressure are men or women?

 

[badger1980]

I think it's because men lose weight so much easily than women do, overall. A man's metabolism is something like three times a woman's. A woman skips dinner and is cranky and hungry. A man skips dinner and drops two pounds. So he turns to the woman and says "why are you complaining? All I had to do to lose two pounds was to skip dinner!"

My husband was being supportive in the "yaaay, good job" way, but when I'd talk about having a really hard day on the diet, he'd kind of blank it out. My main struggle used to be variety - the same flavours all the time gets a bit old. I convinced him that he needs to taste the packs I'm eating to see for himself what I'm talking about. Works a treat!

I know what y'all mean about the pressures to go off the diet. Aside from insecure spouses, do you find that most of the people giving that pressure are men or women?

I wish it was that easy, fair enough i'm losing at the rate of a couple of plans lower but ive never really burnt off calories fast enough. I think the real reason men generally burn faster is that they do more active jobs, not that women dont or that every day stuff isnt hard but on building sites and dustmen etc burn some serious calories in a day doing nothing more than earning there bread, when I was younger I worked in a factory lifting wardrobes around on my shoulder all day and ate what I wanted and never gained a pound yet now I work at home and in a studio with 95% of the day on my backside I have put a load of weight on.
I do think though my view on losing weight is different though to a lot of women, men certainly dont get so worried over a belly and gaining pounds, seen as a sign of being a propper man amongst the boys, where I know girls who are very unhappy yet are only a tiny amount overweight, blokes get overweight by poor diet and lazyness where women seem to eat more emotionally.
Back to the original post, I dont think people do have a clue if they are not/havnt been overweight. Its a big thing losing weight and certainly on par with giving up smoking or drinking.