Wife is 39 BMI .... Help

(Arie1985uk ) #1

She had blood tests today, she keeps on telling me she wants to lose weight but she’s against keto - is there anything I can do?
She tells me she wants to eat healthy, and I’d like to support it, she told me to stop buying ice creams for the kids, even though they “can” eat it - she doesn’t want them to eat junk… but they are kids… it’s harder to do it with them although they do like cucumbers, and some ground beef that I cook for them as well as scrambled eggs…

But I’m worried about my wife, how can I help her to lose weight not via keto? I told her “look at my results, is it not convincing enough?” - but she says she can’t give up carbs, she likes eating rice/sushi and some bread and things like that … I don’t know how to help her … any ideas or suggestions please?

(Alec) #2

My best advice is to continue to lead by example. I have also (almost) converted my wife by watching a lot of YouTube vids about keto and carnivore, especially the ones with doctors (sounds more authoritative) eg Dr Berry, Dr Baker Dr Mason, and watch them in front of her. Slowly but surely the info sinks in… it may or may not change behaviour, but indirect education is the best way. And then behaviour change is up to them. You can’t change it for them.

Your wife sounds addicted to carbs… the responses she gives are typical of an addict. The best way to deal with addiction is abstinence ie go carnivore/zero carb. I am not sure that is helpful here if there is no willingness, but hey-ho, at least you might know what you’re dealing with.

Patience and persistence is what you need.

(Arie1985uk ) #3

Thanks

(Bob M) #4

Some people really do need to quit. Here’s a helpful book by a woman whose husband (a physician) was treating people with keto/low carb with great success. She realized she had to quit eating sweets and the like:

On one of the pages, she has a quiz about whether you’re addicted. I scored a zero, might have been higher if it wasn’t yes/no (eg, “sometimes” or “rarely”, if given points, would have made me score higher). But if you score high on this, you should consider quitting cold turkey, at least for a while. Dr. Unwin realized she had to quit and not restart.

(Robin) #5

Aside from weight, what issues does your wife have? Aching joints? Lethargy? Arthritis? Gert?
Ask her if she can give those up.

But honestly, she may say she wants help. But it’s totally an inside job. She has to flip that switch of motivation herself. In the meantime, just keep on being a walking talking advertisement for healthy eating.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

The first thing to try is to see if she can do without sugar, i.e., sucrose. Would she consent to give up puddings, jams, tarts, biscuits, sweets, fizzy drinks, etc.? (You would know better than I, how best to try to put that over, lol!) I started that way, without worrying about all the other carbs I was eating, and I soon started feeling so much better that I was seduced into going full-on keto. Perhaps it could work that way for your wife.

Also, it might work better to speak of “eating better” than of “eating a keto diet.” Less chance of getting her hackles up.

I have to say, however, that for me, cutting out all sweets worked better than simply trying to cut back. The reason is that I’m a sugar addict, and addicts find total abstinence to be much easier and simpler than consuming the substance in moderation. (Just ask any A.A. member what happened when they tried to drink “moderately,” lol! :grin:) If your wife is not a sugar addict, it could well work for her to cut back on the sweets gradually.

Another thought: most people enjoy meat, so you might try (if you can afford it) to increase the amount of meat/poultry/fish she eats (not chips, though, because of the breading!) and cut back on the starchy veg. Butter, cream, and cheese sauces can be tasty additions, too. If that works for her, just keep going in the right direction. At this point, no sense trying to get her down to keto-levels of carbs. You can sort that later.

The principle I’m advocating is to make a start, any start. You can move on from there. Don’t make the perfect be the enemy of better. And keep reminding her of how much you love her and want her to stay around. Good luck!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #7

I see Bob has mentioned Jen Unwin’s book. You may find it helpful, even if your wife does not.

Dr. Unwin and her husband David are both members of the Norwood Avenue surgery in Southport, which has been cited by the NHS for its role in reversing Type II diabetes in its patients (among other things, that surgery saves the NHS something like £40,000 annually by de-prescribing medications). Dr. Jen, a psychiatrist, has experience running support groups for patients of the surgery who are trying to eat low-carb, a programme they are trying to expand nation-wide in cooperation with Diabetes UK and the Public Health Collaboration. Dr. David got into prescribing a low-carb/ketogenic diet for diabetes after a patient improved her diabetes with such a diet and took him to task about never telling her about LCHF/keto!

By the way, David Unwin has produced a number of infographics depicting common foods in terms of the spoonfuls of sugar they contain. These are available for free download from the PHC. They have also been officially endorsed by the Ministry of Health (or possibly the NHS–I forget). A Labour shadow minister of health was in the news a few years ago for reversing his Type II diabetes with a ketogenic diet, and he is a strong supporter of the Unwins.

(B Creighton) #8

Many people find it very hard to resist the dopamine hit they get from sweet carbs, which is why almost all processed foods have added sugar. They are engineered to give consumers a dopamine hit so they will want more. It was very scientifically engineered when the tobacco companies started buying up the food companies back in the 1970s.

I married my wife knowing food may be an issue. Her father and grandfather died of diabetes. I told her before we married, I would not eat fried food. We had three children, and now I wish I had taken more of a role in their food preparation. For awhile my wife was buying them the junk cereals - sometimes it was junk peanut butter on oatmeal… not much better… the youngest is now very ADD. Ben Bikman took a more proactive role than I did, and fixes his children a protein-rich breakfast. Kudos to you for making your children scrambled eggs. My wife has avoided diabetes so far, but her younger siblings are now diabetic. Nevertheless, my wife still wants to lose weight, but if there is junk food around she goes through spats of eating it… she will eat a whole box of wheat thins or a whole bag of corn chips in one sitting. I do most of the grocery shopping, and still buy some of these foods, so am partially at fault… but I want them for the occassional dessert. I will put the organic corn chips on chile, but I don’t need them, and will probably just stop buying them. She doesn’t really eat these foods this way… that is as a dessert, so I believe is eating them to get that dopamine hit. I remember being dismayed at her for giving the kids sweets before dinner. If she made it, she wanted to give it to them right then. Well, this is partially the reason she is at where she is now. I can only imagine if someone else had married her… she would be like her younger siblings… on metformin. Nevertheless, I have never forced her to try to change. I just took over the grocery shopping, and took it upon myself to fix most of my food… she wouldn’t buy wild salmon, shrimp, crab, lamb, etc because she won’t eat it, and so I just went without until I began shopping myself. I have stopped buying the processed desserts, potato chips, and the vast majority of carbage we used to have, so now instead of sitting down to eat a box of crackers, she will eat my pistachios… I still love her, and am glad she is not diabetic. But she has a fairly limited diet, and I want more variety. She will eat the occasional steak, but otherwise it is chicken, chicken, chicken, and lots of salad. It is just not my thing. She has stopped giving me beef about my smelly seafood, and I don’t try to change her either. Other than I did take over the shopping so just stopped buying the processed foods. We have also figured out some things, which I believe have helped her… she apparently has a bad MTHFR mutation, so supplemental methylcobalamin really helps her.

(Edith) #9

I’ve been listening to a podcast lately about resistance training. The men on the podcast suggest that instead of telling people they can’t eat certain things, to suggest they eat their protein requirement first and then to fill in the rest with whatever else they want. Eating the protein first naturally makes a person cut down on the carbier choices. They suggest 1g per pound of ideal body weight.

Maybe this will work for your wife? If she wants to be 150 pounds, just have her eat 150 g of protein in a day, 50 g per meal. If she eats 50 grams of steak or chicken first, she may be so satiated she really can’t eat much of the other.

(Joey) #10

As @robintemplin rightly says above, it’s an “inside job.” You can be of help with info and support, but you cannot make major life choices for another adult, no matter how much you love her.

In fact, the more you love her the more you are called upon to respect her informed choices.

This is often the hardest part of deeply caring about someone. :vulcan_salute:

#11

The others wrote so very good things, I can’t really add much… Or so I say but of course I will…

I am with @PauL, just cut out a lot of carbs, preferably the worst types. My SO is a high-carber (and slim while I am the fat low-carber. because he is more active and more disciplined and vain. he VERY easily gains fat but he just don’t overeat) but he is health-conscious and cut off added sugar ages ago and we don’t eat overprocessing things but make our own food from scratch. We do have processed items but they are okay ones in smaller amounts, cheese, not sugary sausages and the like.
When I went low-carb and was careful not to eat unnecessarily much, I lost a decent amount of fat. Not nearly all what I had but a big percentage. I was very far from keto (I couldn’t do keto back then, I got unwell right away and had to quit) but I ate about 80g net carbs and that isn’t so very high compared to the norm… And it was effective to some extent. I felt better too (even though I felt pretty healthy on high-carb, there was room for improvement) and it was motivating!
Maybe she should just try things, without the pressure that it should be followed for months or years…? Maybe it will be easier and more beneficial that she would think!
But taking useful steps still should be doable if she is serious about a healthier and not overeating new woe… I personally saw no hardship in just cutting out added sugar (but people say it’s hard so it’s individual) as I liked to make my food anyway and I could kept my sweets, I just used sweetener. Way less sweetener than sugar as sweet perception tends to change… (Now I barely ever eat any sweetener but 14 years passed and things happened. I still have desserts every day.)
So maybe it seems scarier than it would be? And maybe it would be fine to go halfway or how should I call it. One can’t do ketosis halfway but low-carb works for many people, it only was good for me temporarily but it was needed, I liked it while it worked and it wasn’t so bad for off days either, definitely better than high-carb!

Focus on some nice protein (meat seems to work the best, not all are the same though and it’s individual how satiating the different meats are) is a nice advice too. It is easy to eat a ton of food after a bunch of protein for many of us BUT it is easier not to do it if we put in a little effort. I only got maintenance level this way but it still was way better than the usual carby overeating and it wasn’t just the macros, I felt less someone able to make good dietary decisions, the urges were worse, the hunger more annoying…

So I say if she is serious, try to do low-carb at least, maybe it will be awesome and not so hard. My low-carb was easier than my high-carb, I really didn’t feel I miss out things (well there was the occasional party or something but most of my days were easy low-carb, more enjoyable than my high-carb times and I pretty much enjoyed eating all my life). But keto, even with a generous amount of carbs was awful and impossible in the beginning. So I did low-carb and all was well for a while.
Even now, some keto styles would be impossible for me while others are lovely and easy for a while. We may need fine tuning to get our sweet spot that is effective and we enjoy ourselves enough not to quit. It probably disappoints people who want something simple and general and works for everyone - but life isn’t like that. I find it interesting and exciting to figure out what works for me, I love experiments, they are fun… And we are subject to change, the woe that works for us now may not be perfect in a few years…

Good luck!!!

I wonder if the kids would eat low-carb ice cream. I think mine is tons better than anything I could buy but I am not a kid. Keto sweets are pretty good, at least mine, my family members like what I make - while it’s not so good regarding the non-sweets items… Keto makes sweets very easy and if done well, they are quite nutritious and tend to taste better than store-bought ones but of course, it depends on the person.

#12

Same way the overwhelming majority of people do, track what she eats and be in a deficit. Keto’rs are less than the 1%, the rest of the planet loses fat without it.

She still can, but will still need to be in a deficit overall, if she’s not willing to track, it’s unlikely she’ll pull that off. Macro trackers like MarcoFactor figure out peoples metabolic rates and set macros for them, and it works, assuming you don’t lie to it. If she’s not at least willing to track and be honest, then it’s unlikely she’ll hit her goals.

(KM) #13

Just a clarification, “track calories”, and be in a “calorie deficit”, right?

(Bob M) #14

I think this is a really good idea. It’s harder to eat too much if you do this, and if you eat meat first, even if you eat carbs later, the carbs should have less of an effect on blood sugar and insulin.

Note: This still doesn’t make me a believer in the protein leverage hypothesis.

#15

Yes, I said that. That’s not make believe, regardless of whether you want it to be or not. If you don’t think so, please start eating 10 meals a day and submit weekly progress pics to show you’re not getting fatter.

Seriously… You will, because that’s literally what your body was designed to do, store in times of a surplus to keep you alive when you weren’t. Unless you think nobody ever lost weight prior to keto? right?

(Bob M) #16

Cept it’s way more complex than that. Waaaaaaay more. I mean your chances of not being starving while eating 1,500 calories of high carb are near zero, whereas your chances of not being starving while eating 1,500 calories of near zero carb/keto are much higher.

Followed a guy on threads who ate 4,000 calories of carnivore per day for 3 weeks, he lost weight. He then ate 4,000 calories a day of SAD (we’re talking pop tarts for breakfast, frozen pizzas, nasty stuff) for 3 weeks, and gained weight, though not anywhere near what was “calculated” for that amount of calories. But he was also incredibly insulin sensitive, as his fasting insulin was like 3 AFTER eating SAD for 3 weeks. Someone who is much less insulin sensitive would not fare as well.

(KM) #17

No, I wasn’t contradicting you, just clarifying, as you never mentioned what you were suggesting to track or have a deficit of, and this forum is about carb tracking or restriction often as not. I’m well aware that calorie restriction works, at least short term.

Eta: although I’m surprised you’d suggest it, given your struggles with lowered mbr after trying calorie restriction.

(Bob M) #18

I wouldn’t be too sure of that.

https://youtu.be/0mnhha9JfCM

I think this is WAY more reasonable than CICO.

#19

Eating little enough usually works but few can (or willing to) stand hunger while losing fat for long enough so yep, it’s important to choose our items well. And there is health anyway…
I couldn’t lose fat eating bread - unless I would get my food from someone and I had no access to anything else but thankfully that’s not my reality. I would starve. It’s just too low satiation and I tend not to stop after 1-2-3 slices… We must remove our triggering (and if satiation is tricky, non-satiating) items, we can’t just eat anything we want. But if one has no such items and can stand hunger for their figure (like my SO), yep, any item may stay. A bigger energy need helps and it’s good if the carby food is just as satiating as anything else (my SO has that). Carbs make me hungry so no wonder I never ever could lost fat on high-carb. And apparently many on this forum experienced the same.

So the bread may or may not stay, we can’t possibly know that in this case, it’s individual. I would start with some start steps (removing clearly unhealthy, triggering, unsatiating items) and then experiment what could work. Some styles are out due to our tastes and circumstances. But there are usually plenty of options.
Main thing she should start. A healthier diet is already better and maybe it starts the fat-loss. If not, some changes should be done later when they are probably easier, not all of us can just do everything right from day 1… (I have serious difficulties on day 5000 too but things definitely improved. A too big change may be scary - or may feel super bad, it’s not just mental strength, it can be physically problematic - , I understand that.)

Of course, what we consider healthy varies too. For bread, it depends on the person and the bread too if you ask me. And I am sure more people could live without it than they would think. My SO always loved bread and ate it with almost everything as many people here do. But he easily quit when we did an experimental gluten free year (he still ate grains but still, no bread! I quit grains and potatoes and legumes and ultraprocessed food and added sugar and some other things one day, it was effortless. keto was the impossible thing right away. or never eating bread when I bake one every week…). Yes, it’s not so easy for everyone but most of us can’t possibly know before trying. Too many people get scared of keto thinking about all the carbs they NO WAY could give up. Maybe there is a way. No commitment for life, just TRY for a while… Even if there are off days, it’s better than just keeping eating wrong.

(Brian) #20

I don’t know if it would help but could you do some cooking? I’ve watched Chris Cooking Nashville for a while and he has some pretty good recipes. He has basically carnivore versions (or at least keto) of numerous things that are not typically keto or carnivore friendly. “Mashed potatoes”? He’s got a recipe, and gravy to go with. I thought I remembered him doing some kind of “rice”. I think he made some kind of bread. And there are other things.

If she’s getting foods that look and taste like the “carbs she loves”, maybe she’d enjoy some of that with you and not miss the heavy carbs so badly.

There are substitutes for a lot of things. Bread, noodles, potatoes, desserts… and some of those might be better as “transition” foods rather than the new way of eating. But maybe it would be a step.

Good luck!