Help, My Wife Listens to Kate Harding

Nutrition
141

After your last post, I agree with Christine- counseling sounds like a good idea. Maybe a third party could help her see your point of view and help stop the emotion-based attacking and guilt-tripping going on in your wife’s arguments. She FEELS hurt, even though that hurt is not based on any sort of logic, but the pain is real to her nonetheless. A third party could be just the thing.

Do your research though- you don’t want to end up with the PhD psychobabble version of Kate Feminazi Fatass for a therapist.

142

Roofies and a homemade liposuction machine?

143

To those that don’t know, I’d like to point out that it takes a lot of weight to completely outgrow a drysuit. Drysuits or not the same as the skintight neoprene wetsuits that many of you think of. They are much looser and layers of clothing can be worn under them such as in these pictures. http://www.dui-online.com/dry_main.htm

144

I agree, counseling is an excellent idea, though you must choose carefully, as theAnj says.

Synthetic, ask yourself these questions:

Your wife is asking you to drop the subject entirely. Is the rest of the marriage so good that you are willing to do this?

If not, what exactly will she have to do to satisfy you? Do you realistically believe this will happen? Will you both be happy with this result?

If she is truly unwilling to change at all on this subject, what do you imagine will be the result? Remain married but have an affair? Divorce? Simply accept the situation & gut it out for the rest of your life?

I’m not asking you to answer these questions on this thread. Its just that you say you are at a loss for what to do next, & thinking about these questions might help. Or as Miss Oprah says, if you don’t know what to do, do nothing until you do know.

145

I agree with Christine and Miss Parker, counseling would be good all around.

but fella you have to stop the nagging.

discuss what you want, give her some time to think, and then figure out where you are going from there.

Live your life and be a good example

stop the haterade it won’t help you

146

Yeah that seems to be the next step.

147

Counseling may be a good step.

148

Yeah I’m in Michigan, currently one of the worse states in the nation concerning obesity. You should fly her over here to see it at its worse. You literally can’t go to any grocery store with out seeing obese women/men and kids of all ages around each corner. Carts full of processed junk with a bag of cheesy puffs on top.

It’s just sad, really. What’s worse is that it’s becoming accepted as normal for some.

I’d tell her. How is she going to feel when she has kids and she can barely keep up with them playing, because of getting gassed from being overweight.

Tell her about how it sucks being diabetic, all the pills and constant monitoring of your blood. All because of a bad choice of not working out a couple hours a week and eating healthy most the time.

I’m lucky as in my girlfriend (who is slim as hell as is) wants to workout and learn. I had her learning how to squat and deadlift a little which was fun as hell.

She even commented to me how she used to have a tighter butt when she was younger and she wants it back. I’m willing to help her with that, it’s going to be tough but I will help her achieve them tight glutes.

Maybe invest in some equipment and that way you can teach her some stuff at home and you can get her to start lifting when you’re not home. Just make it fun.

149

[quote]synthetic wrote:
How do I convince her that her weight might really be unhealthy, not to mention she would look better naked if she weighed less than me?
[/quote]

Get her on T-Nation.

150

I’m truly sorry you’re in such a situation - hope it turns out well after all this.

151

Well you are in a little bit of a problem… It sounds like your wife already feels cruddy about the whole weight issue, trying to justify why its ok.

Maybe start off small and offer to go for walks with her or try getting her to go to a class or offer to go to some kind of class at the gym.

I would go with what others have been saying and maybe try some counseling if this issue is going to hurt your relationship together.

Good luck with everything! Remember women are emotional and feelings are easily hurt

The fat feminist will die alone be glad about that.

152

Anyone reconsidering the luncheon meat idea?

153

Wow, this Kate Harding person is ridiculous.

I love how she describes anyone who keeps weight off after dieting as a “freak of nature”. This is why I love T-Nation, we don’t put up with that pussy bullshit.

Accepting being fat is ignoring reality in my opinion. It’s cognitive dissonance practiced by so many americans who do not want to face the real world. Fat is ugly (although this is subjective, it becomes less so when most people agree on this) and an indication of poor diet and health, not to mention lack of activity. If you feel bad about being fat, the answer is not to play some mental games and accept yourself, or change reality as this Kate Harding is doing, but to LOSE SOME WEIGHT. You will be happier, I promise, unless you really WANT to be fat.

As much as I hate to admit it though - she does have a point in some cases. You can only get so far toward your ideal body - if you’re unhappy with the genetics that you have then there’s really not much you can do about it. At that point if you’re still unhappy it would seem you do have some issues about your body image and really should try and accept yourself for who you are. There are healthy levels of caring about your body image - you should care just don’t be obsessed.

154

But for virtually no one is a BMI such as 37.5 (or in other words, for example 205 at 5’2") only as good as one can get towards being healthy – not that you said that it was.

It might well be the case that for now just slipping under the double-the-risk-of-death BMI = 32 point is all that is a realistic goal, and after that has been achieved and held for a while, going for slipping just under the “obese” cutoff of BMI = 30.

It indeed may be unrealistic for a given woman who is 5’2" to be only 104 lb or only 120 lb or whatever. But getting out of being deep into the obesity range to either just the beginning of it or just under it? Absolutely that is realistic. The only “freaks of nature” would be those, if any, that could not get out of it, despite employing appropriate and realistic lifestyle methods.

And I’m not sure that that even exists.

155

Another long talk last night. Women like Kate and my wife have spent their life beating themselves up over their weight. Sometimes they lose 10 pounds, then gain it back a few months later. The site is supposed to be about not beating yourself up anymore, accept who you are as OK instead of hating yourself.

We discussed how we react to body image differently. When I saw vacation photos of myself where I felt like a whale, I got fired up and lost 40 pounds. When she hates her body image, it has the opposite effect and she’s just depressed about it. It’s only when she feels good about herself that she has the will to improve herself. So that’s the complete opposite of most of us.

One point we talked about is how this site (because the T-Nation demonization had to come sometime) teaches us to hate fat people. I still read the Big Picture seminar every six months for inspiration.

http://www.T-Nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny/the_big_picture_seminar_triage_hierarchies_and_snowballs

This ends with going to WalMart to see average Americans. ‘Most people aren’t going to train with intensity,’ etc. Well, this teaches us to look down on fat people. And in this case, taught me to look down on my wife.

I finally got her to consider a different diet. But we need to find one she can maintain. So that’s some progress.

She even agreed to start reading T-Nation if I start reading Kate. Hmm, why not. Though I doubt my comments will stay on that site for long.

156

http://www.stumptuous.com/cms/stumptuousblog.php

You might want to send her to this site too.

Lots of great information for women.

157

Also, I’d recommend the book Body for Life. (Original, not the women’s version).

While I love T-Nation, I think that it can be intimidating for someone who is new to lifting and working out.

BLF is very simple to understand and follow. I really think it is great for beginners.

158

As personal opinion, I don’t think T-Nation is going to be helpful for a woman who is not either self-fired-up or on the edge of it in the first place. I don’t have particular recommendations on helpful sites.

I do think it worth repeating that, odd as it may sound, the Women’s World magazine could be a very helpful source. Not only is the information good, but it’s always in the format of sustainable lifestyle change, not something that can only be done on a crash basis, and it’s “real women” with bodies she can relate to that are used as examples.

They may well have some of the old good dietary advice on their website, I don’t know (not surprisingly, I don’t go to their website but if they do have it, it may be a big help.)

My concern is that unless a person is self-fired-up in the first place, too major a goal or proposed goal or “that’s the thing to do” sort of standard being presented is worse than a much more modest goal.

It probably is much better for her to have the goal of just getting under that BMI of 32 point (175 lb) and then after that has been settled into, considering and if desired accepting the goal of getting just out of being obese (160 lb will achieve that.)

A 30 lb loss, even at this point where she is seeing things as edge-of-hopeless, can with new information be “conceived and believed,” to use that awful phrase.

Getting down to 15% bf like the “bunnies” (she might call them that) on a website she probably cannot truly believe as possible. So that even being in the mix, comparing herself to those that have achieved that, etc may well be the opposite of helpful in her case.

Goals or appearances of what the standard should be can advance with time; but if too ambitious too early this can result in failure when very worthwhile success could have been achieved if the initial thought had been more modest.

(For some people; for those that are self-fired-up the opposite may be true.)

159

[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:

My concern is that unless a person is self-fired-up in the first place, too major a goal or proposed goal or “that’s the thing to do” sort of standard being presented is worse than a much more modest goal.

[/quote]

I agree with the idea that it’s difficult to get anyone to make body composition changes and that it has to come from within if it is going to be a commitment they will stick to. That’s certainly been true for myself.

That said, is there any way to influence people to reach that point? I’ve been thinking about it and I can’t think of anything that anyone has said to me that has directly impacted me… it’s just been the culture and thinking I choose impacting me on a daily basis.

I’d just like to say how very thankful I am for my husband and his encouragement. If I gain a few pounds of fat he says to me something like,

“Honey, I know you are dedicated to being healthy and strong and I know you would never let yourself go the point of being unattractive and un-sexy to me, so you need to accept your temporary body changes and then figure out what you need to do better.”

That’s not coersion, it’s truth. But his affirmation of the truth is what gets me to work harder on my body.

His method is hugely encouraging to me… so maybe you could try and lower your wife’s defenses, find out what her REAL goals are (even if she feels completely defeated at weight loss, she still might want to, and her “acceptance” philosophy is just a defense mechanism) and simply identify with them.

Identify with how discouraged she feels, how long the road seems, how impossible a goal it seems, etc. Show her how even little steps can take her towards that. Show her that even a couple pounds lost are progress and she can celebrate them and use them as motivation.

If she’s unwilling to try and lose the weight, that’s another story. But I refuse to believe every woman doesn’t, deep down, want to look sexy, which DOES!!! imply a certain body image, but most people in our culture don’t know what it means to exercise self control.

Honestly. Like learning how to walk, only most people learn how to do that, but our culture fosters dependence on emotional/self-image gratification-strollers.

160

I agree with the Body For Life suggestion to get her started. Its how I actually got started.

And while my progress really took off after I found T-Nation, it was the transformation stories in BFL that made me begin to think I was capable of change. And yeah, the original is much better than the one targeted to women.

The website listed by Christine looks good, too. Mostly, its just important for her to have constant exposure to the message that she can do it.

If she’s going to read T-Nation, start her out on one of the forum threads - specifically one where a woman starts the thread saying she’s overweight & needs advice and support. It won’t be hard to find one, and the women that frequent these threads are incredibly helpful and supportive.

I don’t have a specific one to suggest, I’m afraid, but I’ve seen several over the year or so I’ve been around here.

Good for y’all for trying to meet in the middle!