Expert Opinions

I found this question posted at

http://en.allexperts.com/q/Questions-Marriage-Husband-864/Morbidly-Obese-wife.htm

Question

We have been married for 11 years. She always talks about doing something about her wieght/health issues, but never does. We have 3 children and I once loved her. After years of watching her harm herself and blame me or the kids for things not going right, I'm really sick of it. I don't risk bringing any sensative subject up at all. She does as little as possible at all costs. From the day we married she constantly questioned my fidelity, which I've never broken. My children are 7,8 and 9 years old when it's time to clean house--they do it all while she directs from the couch! I suppose I could go on but but there's no point. Basically, no matter what I do to hopefully make things better, they get worse. I not only feel like an utter failure, I also feel as if my life is wasting away. Could you lend me your perspective? 

Sound familiar? I thought the answer was in many ways a breath of fresh air.

Answer

Dear Ken,

First off, morbid obesity is not only a physical health issue, it is a mental health issue. Despite how much you and the children love her, she does not feel fulfilled unless she is filled. The seeds of eating to self medicate were sown long before you met her. She finds comfort in food. This addiction to eating has reached the point where she has become physically incapable of normal movement. Being able to intimidate you and direct the children to clean the house while she reigns from the couch is powerfully manipulative behaviour. Addicts are masters at manipulation of others, they just find themselves unable to manipulate (motivate) themselves into more positive behaviours.
Your wife needs the help of a mental health professional. She obviously will not seek this for herself, so you will have to do what you can to attempt to get her on the road to recovery. Be hopeful but be prepared to run up against a brick wall. Unless she is miserable enough to want to effect change in herself she will refuse any and all help.
You have the right and the responsibility to get her a complete physical check-up. You have the right to consult with her primary physician. You have the responsibility to discuss a mental evaluation in regard to your wife's obese condition and any other emotional symptoms that effect you and the children. You do not have the right to force a commitment if your wife refuses to enter a program for personal rehabilitation.
If your wife is in a state of denial and refuses to seek medical help you have the right, as a father and a human being, to do what you feel is best for your children and yourself. If that means filing for divorce and custody than that is what you must do. (As a personal note: I urge you not to leave the children with your wife, request custody as it will impact the children in a dangerously negative way if you leave them in the care of a mother who is not capable physically of looking after them).
So, first get some sound medical guidance. If she is uncoopertive about this then you should have no qualms about seeking legal advice to dissolve the marriage.
Best wishes,

Sandy

Yeah, I know any idiot can search the web for this stuff, but isn't it nice to have somebody like me out there doing it for you? Isn't nice to have it all bundled up here at MFS? In any case this little Q & A got me thinking. How many of us have been to the doctor with our spouses, checked the medications, asked questions. I may have trotted this out before, but if your spouse had a broken leg or severe depression or god forbid, cancer wouldn't you be going to the doctor's office with her. I know people who are married to somebody with Arthritis who, I'm ashamed to say, spend more time on their spouse's health than I do. They read up on all the meds, insist that their spouse do what the physical therapist tells them to do...I realize obesity is not Arthritis and if your dealing with a smoker or an Arthritic nagging is rarely effective, but taking an active role in mitigating the effects of a serious health issue is a spouse's responsibility. I have to admit, I could take a far more active role in mu own situation. My wife is being treated and seen for a variety of medical conditions. I'm not familiar with all the medications, but she seems to stay on top of it and gets pretty regular checkups. The denial is still there though. Depression and obesity dance around each other or should I say lie on the couch together wrapped up in each others arms wondering what time it is.

Running may be a Bad idea for your Fat Spouse!

As a person who used to be an active and successful personal trainer, I'll tell you that it's a genuinely BAD idea for someone who is overweight to run or even jog.

I'm going to post some links as to why it's a bad idea to run if you are overweight but for now let me explain the matter in an easy to deliver analogy.

A woman whose body is genetically programmed to carry 126-154 lbs on their frame at 5'8" has ligaments, muscle tissue, connective fibers, etc all geared toward that genetic marker for weight.

If a woman weighed 126lbs when she was actively running 5 miles a day, then that is her baseline weight. Take the baseline weight from when she was active and then use todays weigh in weight.

Let's for the sake of arguement say that this woman weighed in at 176lbs.

176lbs (current) - 126lbs (base) = 50lbs of weight.

To be more blunt, that means that she has a ratio 40% over her baseline weight.

Multiply that 40% by her current weight and you get the equivelent stress to her knees and ankles... which is approximately 70lbs.

That means if you want her to feel what it's like on her body to run at this weight, then give her a backpack and drop two 35lb weights into the back of it and tell her to try jogging with it.

It will become very clear, very quickly it's a super bad idea.

So the question is when should she begin running? Can she begin running?

The answer is yes, she can start. But she needs to develop a running strategy that starts from the base and moves up. She has to start with a walking regiment first, then move up to light running focusing on maximizing her glide and reducing her up and down motion (less jarring on the knees). Eventually she can move up to fartlek or H.I.I.T. training.

The thing about running is that it is only good for fat burning up to a point. Long distance runners don't typically lose as much body fat as interval trainers, because our bodies are not naturally structured for endurance type athletics. Sure we can always train for a marathon, but our muscles work better for shorter sprint distances.

My professional recommendation is that she start off very slowly, and focus on form/technique, etc. It comes back quickly but it's rough. She also shouldn't increase her mileage by more than 10% a week.

Another thing you may want to get her is a stick of body glide. It is rubbed on the inside thigh and keeps chaffing away like magic. You can pick it up at any running store.

If you have the money, go to an equipment reseller or craigslist and buy a high quality eliptical trainer or simply get her a gym membership at the YMCA if she'll go.

The eliptical trainer will give her a decent cardio workout with no jarring to the knees.

If she wants to know if she's working hard enough, buy her a heart rate monitor watch with a chest band. It'll tell her how hard she is actually working better than her own guess. And frankly it makes workouts more productive when you have some kind of tracking device as to where you are cardiovascularly.

Speed walking and hiking are great exercise as well. I'd also recommend if she is going to run to cross train and to stretch. If her body starts to hurt at all, switch gears and let herself heal. That doesn't mean quit working out. It simply means do a non-impact version of exercise until any injury she sustains is gone.

As a former runner I am sure she knows that the warm up and cool down periods are critical to avoiding injury so I won't go there.

She might also want to consider buying a shoe designed for her increased weight and foot type. Not all shoes are created equally and a good running shop may charge retail, but they are staffed with runners who aren't highschool students that don't have a clue about topics like strike, pronation, etc.

If I can find articles about this, I'll send them your way. Hopefully you won't need any to convince her to take it very slow.

Mapping out a work out plan and keeping track of goals is a great way to get things done. Try mapping out her distance and times and setting goals weekly.

Sprint training will help with the speed... she just needs to be super careful.

Good luck and I'll dig for some articles (they are rare because so few obese people run).

Peace,

Crash


Brother Crash wrote posted this on the My Fat Spouse Forum

Obesity and Pain

I spend an inordinate amount of my time in pain. It's not acute, debilitating pain that some people surely suffer from, and for that I am thankful. But it is pain nonetheless, and it affects me deeply. It didn't use to be like this. I was an active, healthy teenager and remained so into my 20's and even my early 30's. After I became morbidly obese (at about age 28), I still had quite a bit of mobility without pain. It was harder to move, and I was far more tired, but when I wanted to be active, I could. When it was time to rake leaves or mow a lawn, I could. When I got motivated to try and lose weight, I could walk a couple miles, no problem. I could go swimming and do low impact aerobics without a thought. The only discomforts I experienced were from tiring easily and getting out of breath from being out of shape, and embarrassment over my weight.

Somewhere in there, maybe about 4 years ago, things changed. I started aching all over. My ankles and hips and shoulders would just HURT. But my knees, of course, were the worst. I knew I had a torn meniscus, so I babied it a bit. But as I got fatter and fatter, it became almost impossible for me to move. I could not go up and down stairs without extreme effort and pain. I limped. I hobbled. I hurt just to walk. I really destroyed my joints with the excess weight, and now I am paying the price.

As I have lost weight, much of my mobility has returned. I can do stairs and walk a few blocks, and I can ride my bike. But the problem is, I can't do much else. It's not a matter of aerobic fitness. It's a matter of pain. I WANT to walk further, but I can't. I want to swim, but I can't. When I do, I end up nearly crippled with pain for days or weeks afterwards. I have to stick carefully to my slow and easy exercise regimen... and really, that's fine. I don't mind.

What I mind is being unable to just LIVE. I just want to be able to get up and do simple little things that everyone does: clean the house a bit, play with my daughter, cook, shop. I want to have a more active lifestyle. But when I try, I pay dearly in pain. I would LOVE to be able to get up, wash some dishes, and vacuum. And still be able to play, do a load of laundry, and maybe even do some dusting. I am not talking marathon cleaning here. I just want to get up and move. But instead, when I do those things, I hurt so badly I end up medicated on the sofa. It's a vicious cycle: I want to be active and lose weight, but I have to be sedentary to not hurt, but I have to lose weight to not hurt...

I have been seeing a couple of doctors about this, but sadly, I just found out that my health insurance is being cancelled at the end of the month through no fault of my own. Nothing I can do but file one appeal. If it doesn't go through, I won't be getting any medication, or any knee surgery, for a long time. My only options at this point are over-the-counter medications, strengthening the muscles around the knees to stabilize them, and LOSE WEIGHT. I keep hoping that once I lose a significant chunk of my chunkiness, the pain will ease and I will be okay. But until then, I hurt. It's been a lot worse this week, maybe because of the dreary weather. I always heard old people saying that their joints hurt when it was rainy, but I thought it was just their imagination. But boy has it been worse this week.

I guess the reason I wanted to put this out there is for those heavy folks who are not yet in this position, who still have a relatively pain-free life, who still have the option of normalcy. Please don't wait to get healthy. If only I had known what I was doing to my body five or ten years ago, I would NOT have let this happen. Lose the weight NOW. You don't want to suffer later. It is not worth that Coke and chips. It is not worth that brownie. Trust me on this.

On a brighter note, I know I am far better off now than I would have been had I not lost weight. There is little doubt in my mind that if I were still 278 pounds, I would be in a wheelchair by now. My body was failing. I could barely get around. Surely I would be in far worse shape than I am now. I think I would be crippled by my weight and the pain of bone on bone in my joints. But I lost some weight, and I do feel better. And for that I am VERY thankful.

It's only going to get better from here.

I just thank God that I lost weight before I destroyed my joints.

Posted by Skinnybitch on the My Fat Spouse Forum

Tracking My Fat Spouse's Progress...LORD, will it work this time?

For Father's Day 2010, I got an interesting gift from my spouse.  P90X the in-home fitness program.  At that point, the spouse exclaimed that she was going to commit to losing 100+ pounds between then and May 2011.  Looking back on her track record, I believed she would commit and succeed.  Days became weeks...weeks became months... by NewYear 2011, only 10 pounds had dropped.  She hadn't followed P90X (Yes, it is an extreme in-home workout program) even with the most liberal of modifications.

I, on the other hand, committed.  By NewYear, I lost 22 lbs down from 222 - 200 lbs.  I went down from waist size 38" to 36".  All this was lived out in front of her as she would sit back and not bash but praise my success.

My success finally had a breakthrough at the end of February.  She began to express an interest in joining me for some core routine workouts.  Now, it is March 9th.  We are finishing up our third week of "Couple's Core" workouts nightly for 25 minutes.  This small change adding physical exertion to the rest of her efforts (diet and HCG), has netted her a 25 lb weight loss :)

For the HEALTH of it (she has no cartilage in her knees and is in pain as a result of the 300+ lbs resting on them over the past 25 years)...I can't stand by and watch her flush this motivation down the toilette.  I really want her to follow through with this effort and goal of becoming a candidate for total knee replacement.  I am afraid the family only has about 1-5 years left of life with a mother around if she cashes it all in for another round of setbacks and giving into the monster of self indulging narcissism comforted by her best friend in life...FOOD.


Posted by Dan
on Matilda Tuesday's My Fat Spouse Forum