It's Love, Not Sabotage (part 1)

More than one woman who is struggling to lose weight has complained that her husband, who knows that she's trying to avoid certain foods that she "can't resist" will go out and buy exactly what she "can't" eat. Invariably, the women rave about how their significant others are trying to "sabotage" their efforts. They are angry and frustrated, but the truth is that this is an act of love, not an attempt to short-circuit their success.

For many years, my husband watched me go from around the 160 lbs. I weighed when he met me to nearly 400 lbs. During that time, he worried about my health. Sometimes, the fear that I would die and we would be denied many years of time together because of my weight bubbled to the surface and I could see it in his eyes when he looked at me. It was a look of sadness, not of disgust or disappointment. It was because he loved me so much and didn't want to be denied years of life with me because of my issues with food.

Despite his fear, my husband still did what these other men did. That is, he would buy me food that made me happy and kept me fat. He didn't do it because he wanted me to stay the way I was. It's safe to say that he, more than anyone including me, wanted me to lose weight for the sake of my health and improvement in the quality of my life. He knew that the food made me happy and comforted me in my misery. He also knew that not buying things for me that I enjoyed eating wasn't going to change things because the changes that needed to be made had to come from me, not from him.

When there is someone in your life who is obese or super obese, it is easy to imagine that you are an integral part of the dynamic and that you are "enabling" them if you give them food that "keeps" them fat. This is simply not so. Anyone who makes the decision to eat a particular food in a particular quantity is doing it for reasons you have no sway over. They can't lose weight for you and you can't help them do it for themselves. That is not to say that they don't need support, but they don't need diet police. They need love, care, and attention.

One of the hardest transitions for me when I started living my life differently was not so much the loss of eating every type of food in unrestricted quantities (though that was hard) but the loss of an easy dynamic by which my husband could make me happy by surprising me with some food I'd enjoy. It was a two part process in which he demonstrated the way he thought of me and what would make me happy by giving me a gift, and then I would enjoy that gift. I lost that when I changed my relationship with food.

That loss was also multi-part. First, I couldn't eat just anything any time. I still eat treats and sweets, but the portions are very small such that it takes a long time to eat up whatever I buy. Also, since I eat so little, it's something I am careful to choose based on mood and quantity. My husband really can't be making such choices casually for me anymore. My body is not a garbage disposal that I toss great amounts of food into to get rid of it. The other loss is simply that my psychological changes mean that food is no longer the emotional comforter that I wrap around myself. I enjoy it as a sensory pleasure, but it's not a panacea for my pains anymore.

This loss has required profound adjustments in other areas of my life. My husband has had to restructure how he deals with me because he can no longer buy me food to make me happy. He's got to do more of other things, and it takes time and effort for both of us to figure out what more is required. Our relationship is important to both of us and we've worked hard on finding a new balance. I've also had to find peace and comfort through much more difficult and developed methods than simply eating. This is a profoundly difficult thing and has made me prone to depression, though that has gotten better through working more (which in and of itself has introduced other issues).

I knew for a long time that my husband suffered watching me destroy my health and mobility through my eating, but I knew on a "I know this feeling exists" level. I didn't know on the deeply empathetic level that one has when one stands in another person's shoes. Today, I got a taste of true understanding and deeper empathy when I talked to my sister. I'll go into that though in a follow-up post.

Coping with bad days

Everyone has bad days. They are those times when you're so overwhelmed by something that doing all of the stuff it takes to stay on your plan to improve your health and reduce your weight seems like an immense burden. This isn't an illusion or an attempt to make an excuse to abandon your plan in favor of reverting back to what you “really” want to do, eat junk and be inert, as many people often conclude. It's neither your weakness nor a manifestation of barely suppressed desires to indulge when this happens.

When we have “bad days”, we (usually) lose motivation because we are overwhelmed and doing anything that requires the least bit of effort is like contemplating adding that last straw that will break our (figurative) backs. Your nervous system feels stimulation when physical or emotional discomfort are being endured. It's one of the reasons people who are in pain have less patience than people who are not. At these times, making any effort is hard.

Most people define “effort” as movement or activity, but even thinking about something when you're having a bad day is going to require energy. Your brain, after all, requires an immense amount of energy relative to other organs. Incidentally, this is why college students tend to gain weight. It's not the stress so much as the studying. The brain makes them want quick energy, and they often turn to quick and dense delivery systems like candy.

For women, myself included, menstrual cycles and pre-menstrual cycles tend to be the times when it becomes very difficult to stay on plan. It's not only that your bodily systems are disrupted and its energies diverted to monthly regulatory processes, but also that we tend to develop cravings and want to eat more. Again, this is not weakness, but a function of biology. Fighting back against such strong impulses when you're feeling poorly is an order of magnitude harder than on those days when you're doing well.

Today, I'm having a “bad day” because of my period. I feel foggy, impatient, have a headache, and I want to eat rather than resist when I'm hungry or having a craving. I feel like the least little bit of effort including having to think in any way about what or how much I'm eating is too much and I'd like to just put my head down on the desk and withdraw from everything. All of my understanding of the underlying factors doesn't change the fact that I feel like crap and that resisting any urge right now feels like it's going to take a Herculean effort which I cannot muster.

So, how do I cope? I start with acknowledging that this is going to be a hard day, and that I may end up eating a few more calories, and it's going to be okay if I eat up to 2000 instead of sticking to 1500. It's also okay if I decide not to exercise because I feel bad. And I'm not lying to myself. One of the things which I think people on “diets” tend to do is never let themselves off the hook, push themselves every single day and berate themselves when they “fail”, even when they feel like crap. I think that we have to be reasonable with ourselves and our lives. By giving yourself permission to eat a little more and do less when you feel bad, you take the pressure off of yourself for the day. You immediately improve your chances of coping effectively during the short period of time when you are doing poorly. While there is a chance that you will suffer from a “lack of progress” during the days you do this, you at least will know that you will not suffer a serious setback or suffer needlessly for incremental gains.

The result of consciously cutting myself slack early on when I feel terrible is that the sense of being overwhelmed immediately is reduced. Instead of feeling the crushing weight of my physical difficulties coupled with my mental fog and having to deal with my eating and exercise goals, I only feel the first two. I take away some of the stress that I can control so that I can more effectively deal with the ones that I can't. I actually feel relieved just by giving myself this permission. And if I need to act on that latitude, I will, and I will absolutely not feel bad about it. It's important to remember that one day a month, one day a week or whatever is not going to sabotage your progress, especially if you're not pigging out on far more calories than you could burn in two days. This isn't permission to go crazy, but rather to be more flexible. And that is generally “enough” if you're not in the very earliest stages of your plan (when it's harder to stick with it).

When you're trying to lose weight and doing poorly, you tend to focus excessively on the part of your life which is the hardest to stick to, the diet and exercise. It's the first thing you want to jettison and start over again tomorrow, but there is much more to life and making it easier to cope when you're not doing well. Rather than focus on the part which is hardest to follow, focus on the other parts which may tax you on a bad day but are effortless on other days and determine how you can improve your circumstances throughout the entire day by letting any non-essential activity go. Plan to procrastinate and indulge wherever you reasonably can.

For each person, streamlining your day is different, but I'll give some examples:

• If it is a hot day, give in and use the air conditioner. If it's cold, turn up the heat. Choose the luxury setting just for this day and go back to enduring things for the good of the environment tomorrow when you feel better.
• If you had plans for cleaning or cooking that are not absolutely essential, abandon them. Laundry can wait.
• If you have errands to run which can wait, do not do them. This includes things which may seem innocuous like going to the hair salon or shopping.
• Turn off your cell phone if you can. Turn on your answering machine. Don't risk having to deal with people who may add stress to your day.
• Don't check your e-mail or social networking sites.

I would also recommend adding in tasks that you enjoy which do not necessarily add qualitatively to your life. Examples of these types of things would include:

• Laying around in your pajamas all day (if you're not working, obviously).
• Playing mindless games.
• Watching stupid television or movies that make you happy.
• Drink diet soda or tea or coffee with sweetener when you want them as often as you want them. 
• Don't force yourself to eat things you aren't really interested in eating for health purposes. I know this may be a controversial thing, but if you don't feel like eating a damn vegetable today, don't. It's not the end of the world if you go a day here and there which isn't nutritionally stellar.

My main point is that, when you have a bad day, you want to look at the day and do whatever you can to take pressure of any sort off of you and add in things which relax you and make you feel good. Think outside the box which is labeled "food" and look at your whole life. While this includes cutting yourself some slack on the diet and exercise front (but not to a destructive extent, hopefully), it also includes doing so with your entire day. The very act of doing this will in turn make it easier to follow your food plan. It will also help you start to frame your life in a manner which is "whole" rather than food and body obsessed. You will notice how much of your life does not involve food and how quality of life can be improved without adding in fattening food. Sometimes the stress that makes us go off our plans during days when we feel bad has less to do with the food and exercise, and more to do with the rest of the day.