Wife Has Gained Weight - How To Approach Her About It?

[Anonymous]

OP here. I would be lying if I said weight wasn’t a factor, but the bigger issue is her mental health. She goes on these diets to lose the weight, feels good, and then goes back to gaining weight. Her eating habits are not terribly bad but I she has started to eat a lot of junk food. I cook most our food and we stick to mostly health meals with the once a week takeout. We have eaten like this for years and I don’t think it’s the issue.

I think her late night snacking and her new addiction to pop is the issue. She has been eating late night snacks of popcorn, sweets like candy and ice cream, and started going through a case of pop every week. She said the weight gain gave her heartburn and she needed the carbonation for it, but I think that further contributes to her heartburn and it’s an endless cycle. I bought carbonated water but she hates it and goes back to the pop.

I worry that her constant weight gain, dieting, and losing weight is taking a toll on her. She used to be very energetic and fun and now she never wants to do anything. She complains all of the time that her clothes don’t fit or how she has gained the weight back. I think she needs to see a therapist or maybe connect with a nutritionist who can help her come up with a plan to lose the weight and stop dieting.

[Anonymous]

Honesty is the best policy. “Babe, you’re fat.”

[Anonymous]

OP I think you’re spot on that she could use professional help. The only issue, most professionals are useless. A registered dietitian for example will just tell her to eat well; which she already knows. She needs to address the root of her thoughts and feelings driving her to evening binges. Which is a long way of saying, it might be harder to find effective help than you realize.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I would be lying if I said weight wasn’t a factor, but the bigger issue is her mental health. She goes on these diets to lose the weight, feels good, and then goes back to gaining weight. Her eating habits are not terribly bad but I she has started to eat a lot of junk food. I cook most our food and we stick to mostly health meals with the once a week takeout. We have eaten like this for years and I don’t think it’s the issue.

I think her late night snacking and her new addiction to pop is the issue. She has been eating late night snacks of popcorn, sweets like candy and ice cream, and started going through a case of pop every week. She said the weight gain gave her heartburn and she needed the carbonation for it, but I think that further contributes to her heartburn and it’s an endless cycle. I bought carbonated water but she hates it and goes back to the pop.

I worry that her constant weight gain, dieting, and losing weight is taking a toll on her. She used to be very energetic and fun and now she never wants to do anything. She complains all of the time that her clothes don’t fit or how she has gained the weight back. I think she needs to see a therapist or maybe connect with a nutritionist who can help her come up with a plan to lose the weight and stop dieting.

Here are things that I would have found helpful:
1. An offer that if I want to exercise you'll take care of the kids, laundry, pets, etc. Making sure there was time available, without guilt, and with my partners enthusiasm.
2. Offering to do do all the grocery shopping and meal planning, even for just 2 weeks.
3. Nice dinner out to a restaurant with primarily healthy choices, like sushi or something.
4. Gift certificate to a favorite store, for when I feel like I've earned it.
5. Getting healthy with me, not eating crap food around me, and exercising as well.

[Anonymous]

Focus on health, not weight.
Do things to encourage healthy practices. Make sure she has the opportunity to go to the gym, go with her, go for walks.
Cook healthy meals.
Buy and prepare/serve healthy snacks.

Do NOT criticize her weight or you become the bad guy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Focus on health, not weight.
Do things to encourage healthy practices. Make sure she has the opportunity to go to the gym, go with her, go for walks.
Cook healthy meals.
Buy and prepare/serve healthy snacks.

Do NOT criticize her weight or you become the bad guy.

Either way, he’ll be the bad guy, so be honest and tell her she’s fat.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar issue with my pregnant wife. I brought it up at her doctors appointment and that seemed to help her.

lol help her with what?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I would be lying if I said weight wasn’t a factor, but the bigger issue is her mental health. She goes on these diets to lose the weight, feels good, and then goes back to gaining weight. Her eating habits are not terribly bad but I she has started to eat a lot of junk food. I cook most our food and we stick to mostly health meals with the once a week takeout. We have eaten like this for years and I don’t think it’s the issue.

I think her late night snacking and her new addiction to pop is the issue. She has been eating late night snacks of popcorn, sweets like candy and ice cream, and started going through a case of pop every week. She said the weight gain gave her heartburn and she needed the carbonation for it, but I think that further contributes to her heartburn and it’s an endless cycle. I bought carbonated water but she hates it and goes back to the pop.

I worry that her constant weight gain, dieting, and losing weight is taking a toll on her. She used to be very energetic and fun and now she never wants to do anything. She complains all of the time that her clothes don’t fit or how she has gained the weight back. I think she needs to see a therapist or maybe connect with a nutritionist who can help her come up with a plan to lose the weight and stop dieting.

Here are things that I would have found helpful:
1. An offer that if I want to exercise you'll take care of the kids, laundry, pets, etc. Making sure there was time available, without guilt, and with my partners enthusiasm.
2. Offering to do do all the grocery shopping and meal planning, even for just 2 weeks.
3. Nice dinner out to a restaurant with primarily healthy choices, like sushi or something.
4. Gift certificate to a favorite store, for when I feel like I've earned it.
5. Getting healthy with me, not eating crap food around me, and exercising as well.

OP here.

- She works out everyday after work. We don’t have any kids or pets.
- She does the grocery shopping but I do the meal planning because I’m the main cook. I’m a better cook than her and it’s always been this way.
- I have tried taking her out but she makes excuses of says she doesn’t look good and doesn’t want to go out.
- I’ve tried getting her to go do things with me or friends. We are both introverts.
- I don’t eat any of the stuff she eats. She will snack and I may have a protein bar on occasion but I don’t eat after dinner most nights of the week.

I have tried to talk her into going to bed early, sex, getting out of the house, etc., but nothing works. Every night she eats a ton of junk food while we watch tv or stays up after I go to bed and binges. It’s unhealthy and it’s concerning. She never used to do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

Maybe she is just more comfortable at a higher weight.
Can you just tell her to get some clothes that fit her now, drop the dieting, and just focus on living her life? Tell her that you don’t mind the 20 lbs, but you miss her being the fun, active person that she was when she wasn’t obsessed with her weight and dieting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

This sounds like disordered eating to me. I would focus on the mental health piece of this because the food control/lack of control yo-yoing may be a symptom of a larger issue. I’m sure going through this is miserable for her and you are right to be concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar issue with my pregnant wife. I brought it up at her doctors appointment and that seemed to help her.

Wait, what?

+2 omg hoping this isn’t real. Op, as someone whose weight fluctuates and whose body will never be as small as it once was unless I starve myself and never stop - the whole “worried” about her thing jjst.. woof. If she was eating and exercising the exact same and wasn’t gaining weight, would you be “worried” about her? Probably not. No one was worried about the health of my sister whose diet consisted of Mac and cheese, sandwiches, and plenty of Wendy’s and Taco Bell because she has my moms stellar gene pool and stayed quite skinny. But suddenly family members are very concerned about my “health” when I start to look more like my dad’s side of the family (whose gene pool I clearly pull much stronger for) even though I had a much more varied and most would say diet that include more “healthy” foods.

My point is - the vast majority of people aren’t worried about your health when they point these things out to you. They are worried about you being fat. Because it’s pretty rough in our society to be fat, totally agree, not ideal. And we very much associate weight with health even though like you said, there are a lot of factors. I would just really try to reflect on what you’re actually worried about. It’s also fair that because we all live in this society it does impact us and attraction sometimes at first when our bodies change. I get it. And also, I would say that it’s probably a good time to start accepting that almost no one remains unscathed from their body changing over time. They are meant to change. And sadly, despite huge efforts from many people, research still shows that it’s incredibly hard to keep off weight you have dieted to lose, almost no matter what you do. So you can either continue the yo-yo or try to embrace living a healthy lifestyle for yourself and not your weight.

That’s probably the most helpful thing you can do for your wife. Because shame just makes us have a harder time to actually make healthy choices.

This is such a thoughtful response. Thanks for posting!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had a similar issue with my pregnant wife. I brought it up at her doctors appointment and that seemed to help her.

lol help her with what?

PP here. I’m aware that pregnant women gain weight. My wife is a healthy eater but decided pregnancy was going to be a vacation and she was going to eat whatever she wanted. It became unhealthy and I worried about the nutrition the baby was getting. I talked to the doctor before we went to the appointment and the doctor brought it up and told her how important healthy eating was during pregnancy. That changed it and she went back to healthy eating with a small treat everyday.

I’m not a jerk but she was baking a whole tray of cookies and eating half of them everyday. She was eating loads of ice cream, cookies, and making brownies or cakes every week. All of the healthy went out the window and she started eating a bunch of processed food with loads of sodium and sugar. Think fast food breakfast, boxed stuff for lunches, fast food for dinner, etc. She had gained 30lbs by 6 months and her doctor told her that was too much weight to gain. She ended gaining 40lbs total.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How much weight are we talking about?

OP here. The most she has gained is 40lbs but she will gain 5 or 10lbs, lose the weight with a diet, and then gains 20lbs. It’s a constant cycle the last six months.

Maybe she is just more comfortable at a higher weight.
Can you just tell her to get some clothes that fit her now, drop the dieting, and just focus on living her life? Tell her that you don’t mind the 20 lbs, but you miss her being the fun, active person that she was when she wasn’t obsessed with her weight and dieting.

OP here. She isn’t. She is the one that brings up how much weight she gained and gets mad and goes on a diet. Then she is god for a little while and starts slipping and gains the weight back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. I would be lying if I said weight wasn’t a factor, but the bigger issue is her mental health. She goes on these diets to lose the weight, feels good, and then goes back to gaining weight. Her eating habits are not terribly bad but I she has started to eat a lot of junk food. I cook most our food and we stick to mostly health meals with the once a week takeout. We have eaten like this for years and I don’t think it’s the issue.

I think her late night snacking and her new addiction to pop is the issue. She has been eating late night snacks of popcorn, sweets like candy and ice cream, and started going through a case of pop every week. She said the weight gain gave her heartburn and she needed the carbonation for it, but I think that further contributes to her heartburn and it’s an endless cycle. I bought carbonated water but she hates it and goes back to the pop.

I worry that her constant weight gain, dieting, and losing weight is taking a toll on her. She used to be very energetic and fun and now she never wants to do anything. She complains all of the time that her clothes don’t fit or how she has gained the weight back. I think she needs to see a therapist or maybe connect with a nutritionist who can help her come up with a plan to lose the weight and stop dieting.

Here are things that I would have found helpful:
1. An offer that if I want to exercise you'll take care of the kids, laundry, pets, etc. Making sure there was time available, without guilt, and with my partners enthusiasm.
2. Offering to do do all the grocery shopping and meal planning, even for just 2 weeks.
3. Nice dinner out to a restaurant with primarily healthy choices, like sushi or something.
4. Gift certificate to a favorite store, for when I feel like I've earned it.
5. Getting healthy with me, not eating crap food around me, and exercising as well.

OP here.

- She works out everyday after work. We don’t have any kids or pets.
- She does the grocery shopping but I do the meal planning because I’m the main cook. I’m a better cook than her and it’s always been this way.
- I have tried taking her out but she makes excuses of says she doesn’t look good and doesn’t want to go out.
- I’ve tried getting her to go do things with me or friends. We are both introverts.
- I don’t eat any of the stuff she eats. She will snack and I may have a protein bar on occasion but I don’t eat after dinner most nights of the week.

I have tried to talk her into going to bed early, sex, getting out of the house, etc., but nothing works. Every night she eats a ton of junk food while we watch tv or stays up after I go to bed and binges. It’s unhealthy and it’s concerning. She never used to do it.

As someone who binges, I will tell you that if she is doing it now, she used to do it before. This isn’t brand new behavior. She just used to hide it from you.