Being a Team Player

A couple of months ago I read a post on another blog that has stayed with me, burrowing into my brain and popping out at me from time to time, making me think.  Jeanette Fulda (author of Half-Assed: A Weight Loss Memoir) got an email from a reader wondering how to get her spouse to support her quest to get healthy.  Jeanette posted the email on her blog, and asked her readers to offer advice in the comments section.

The whole conversation made for a compelling, thought-provoking read.  I had to add my two cents’ worth on Jeanette’s blog, but I still feel like I need to address the issue again, on my own blog.

It’s tough.  We’ve been there, done that, and it’s a never-ending negotiation.  We’re now struggling with the parent-child version:  how do we help Delaney embrace healthier eating habits without either alienating or undermining her?  How much “support” is too much?  How much is not enough?

Before Lee’s heart attack, when we knew he had a family history of the disease, but didn’t seem to have any problems himself, I worried.  He didn’t like it.  I’d comment on what he ate; he’d ignore me and eat more.  We both gained weight, lost weight, gained weight over the years.  My occasional nagging annoyed him, but otherwise irrelevant–he paid me no mind.

After his surgery, though, he became completely dependent on me to tell him what to eat–we went to the opposite extreme.  I revamped my cooking.  We both started exercising–and I was the one who eventually went on to do an Ironman triathlon.  Getting healthy became a team effort.

But you know what?  It really tested us, and it continues to.  It’s just hard.  Some days I hate having to think about the fat content of everything he eats, every day.  Some days I wish I could just make a big pan of macaroni and cheese and call it dinner.

I wish I knew Susie Spouse in real life, because what I’d really like to give her is not a one-time answer, but long-term reinforcement.  Losing weight (or lowering cholesterol, or getting healthy, or controlling diabetes, or whatever you want to call it) is not a one-shot deal; it’s a lifestyle.  And it can be really, really hard to maintain that lifestyle in this culture, at this moment in time.  It’s a daily battle.

I can’t imagine how one partner in a marriage could lose a bunch of weight, or make any kind of major lifestyle change, for that matter, without the constant support of the other partner.  But at the same time, I know exactly how hard it is to adapt your lifestyle to meet the needs of another person.

It’s a fine line.

I guess that’s what marriage is all about, isn’t it?