Remy wrote:So I decided to start dieting more for myself instead of an upcoming wedding I'd like to attend. I'm currently between a size 16-18. I'd really like to get back down to at least a 12. My hubby and friends have been supportive. Hubby has even decided to go on the diet with me which is his first diet. He used to be very active and into sports like hockey till he developed degenerative disk disease several years ago. Now even walking causes him pain so him working out is not an option at this point. He is big into nibbling/snacking which I'm not. I normally get so wrapped up in a project I have to be reminded to eat so my metabolism is crud. I'm not sure how to go about helping him with his diet and snacking habits. I tried having a bunch of fruit on hand for him to snack on and it barely helped. Any other ideas are greatly appreciated.
The single best thing that happened to me when I was dieting was that my boyfriend got on board as well. It made the whole diet thing infinitely easier not to have someone who would buy a pack of croissants at the weekend and eat them in front of me.
I was a grazer, so I know how difficult it can be. The big thing for me was tracking. I had literally no idea how much I was eating by grazing, and I still don't really unless I track it. Have him keep a log of what he eats- every last thing- for two weeks. Then see if you can identify patterns. Chances are that he has no idea how much he is eating as he grazes. I certainly didn't. Even the simple fact of having to write it down would make me think twice about having the snack because I knew I would have to track it. Put his list in the kitchen so he will see it when he goes to reach for a snack.
I don't know if I've said it here, but I honestly can't recommend enough the Weight Watchers plan. I did it wholly online, there's an app for it, and you don't have to go to any meetings. For me, that was a win. If you've never done much in terms of calorie control it is easy to have a completely skewed vision of what a portion size is. I'd tried diets before, but it was not until I started tracking and realising that my typical meal was probably twice the size it should be for me to be eating a healthy amount, that I could make the changes I needed to. My boyfriend found it easy to do as well, and on it I lost 60 lbs and he lost 40. (Him faster than me, the *)
One of the inherent difficulties in dieting with your significant other is that boys are allowed to eat more than us females. This is definitely difficult as even if I do sensible meals for us, it isn't enough for him, so I had to break the habit of eating when he would. I still sometimes struggle with that as if he's in the kitchen I gravitate there. The flipside, of course, is that just you doing sensible meals for him isn't going to help if he doesn't change his eating habits too. The fact he's willing to get on a diet is good, but stopping snacking may not be the simple solution that you hope it to be. He probably also needs to figure out portion sizes etc, same as you. WW is great because it will help him do his own plan, for his needs, and give him control over it. If you both get on it, you can make meals, tell him what they're worth point wise, and then he knows how much snacking he can get away with.
I really think that if you're committed to making a change in the way you eat, that you need an outside source to show you what is meant by "healthy" because our society at large certainly does not do that. If I had just cut out my snacking, I know now that my weight would have remained probably just as it was. If it dipped at all, it would have been serendipitous because as far as I was concerned, a portion size was a full plate. Anything less felt like it wasn't a meal and needed something else to me.
it's on Wednesday, so I've got two days to not think about it.