I Live With an Enabler

Enabler: a person who encourages or enables negative or self-destructive behavior in another.

"he criticized her role as an enabler in her husband's pathological womanizing"

I live with an enabler.  He is my husband.

For the past year, I have maintained about a sixty pound weight loss.  "AMAZING!" you may say, but considering I am still overweight, and have about thirty more pounds to lose, and have been actively attempting weight loss for this past year, it's not so amazing in the end.

Now, it is not at all Nick's responsibility to get me to reach my goals.  I fully recognize that.  But there are behaviors that hinder me reaching my goals.

First, I want to be clear that I have a problem.  When presented with two options, one being on my low carb food plan and two being tasty and NOT on my food plan, I will choose number two without hesitation or thought.

For Nick, he doesn't quite understand this.  He's one of those people that all he has to do is decide he's going to do something for set amount of time and he does it.  It is not difficult for him to stay on track with whatever goal it may be, he does it.  Because he said he would.

For me it is much different.  I struggle.  Greatly.  It is an every day battle to fight towards my goals.  It is a mental push and some days the other side wins.  I need all the help I can get.

Nick has often asked me what he can do to help me.  I have told him over and over and over: DO NOT BUY ME FAST FOOD OR JUNK FOOD.  I will do whatever it takes to get it.  

This is not a lie.  I will mention it a billion times about how it sounds good, until he goes and gets it.  I will promise I won't get mad at him later for it.

But I have told him I will try all these these, and I have told him I do not want him to do these things, that he can go get food himself but please, please DO NOT ASK ME IF I WANT ANYTHING!  Because I will say "YES!" when it does nothing to help me reach my goals because in that moment all I am thinking about is food and how it tastes.

He once expressed that he felt bad if he went out for food himself, and didn't get me anything.  Like I was missing out on something.  We discussed it.  Yeah, I may feel like I am missing out at the time, and I could potentially be grumpy, but I can be grumpy because I missed out on some food or completely unhappy with how I look in the mirror because I ate it.

I wish I could be like him.  Set my mind to it and just do it.  Get it over with.  I wish with all my heart.  It would take pressure off me and off him, but that is not how I am.

I wish this was a simple plateau, but it's not.  It's me not controlling my eating.  Me losing that ability.  I've never 100% had that ability even when I was actively losing weight, I cheated more than I should have, but less than what effected me.  I would have reached goal in those first eight months had I stuck to my plan 100%.  But there were just too many days I couldn't.  Too many fast food runs, celebrations, invites out for one reason or another.  Situations where I cannot seem to make smart decisions for myself.  Boy do we all celebrate with food too!  Birthdays, holidays, any sort of get together.  Food.

Now, back to the enabling situation.  Yesterday Nick mentioned IHOP sounded good.  I had already been thinking about hashbrowns.  Which, on a low carb diet are contraband.  With both proceeded to look up coupons.  Once one was located we went.  Without question or thought, we went.  We used to go all the time when I was 230 pounds.  It's nice to go out to eat.  To have someone else cook, but I was also 230 pounds and obese.

Then, later, I hadn't even thought about dinner.  Being on low carb I almost always eat something different than everyone else.  So many family dishes that I know how to cook are full of carbs.  I'm a horrible cook too, by the way, and low carb options are few and far between on a budget.  So I mentioned that what I really wanted was pizza and pie.

Well, we sat around for awhile after that and Nick had to get gas and we go to Sam's Club for that because of the discount.  "Does Sam's have pizza?" Nick asks.  So I look it up, they do.  Of course.

He came home with a ginormous pizza and an equally large apple pie.  He says "with great power, comes great responsibility".  I think this entire past year proves I am horribly irresponsible when it comes to my eating habits.

I ate six squares of pizza (it was so large it had to be cut into squares), and two larger pieces of pie. 

After that I had told myself in my head that tomorrow (which is now today) I would get back on track and fully commit to myself.

But that pie was in the fridge this morning.  So I had a piece.  It was so good, in fact, that I had another.

I cut a piece out for Nick, stuck it in a tupperware, and am seriously considering throwing the rest out, though Nick thought we could freeze the rest of it.  But if we freeze it, it's still there for me to eat again someday.  Because I can't stay out of it.  Because it's apple pie and it's one of my favorites and it's quite delicious and sounds way better than eggs or baked chicken for the 1,000th time.

Instead of asking me "Does Sam's have pizza?"  I really, really wish he would have said "Yeah, it does sound good, but it doesn't get you closer to your goals."

That's the ideal answer.  It's not about commenting on how much I've ate when I eat it.  No, that makes me pissed off, but when I bring up bad food, saying "But it doesn't help you reach your goals" is such a helpful way to make me really, really think about it.  The next step after that, even if I say I don't care, would be saying "yes you do", and then NOT GOING TO GO GET ME FOOD!

Why am I sharing this publicly?  Because our conversations in the past seem not to help, and I am back up to 189.8 after having reached 177.6 just after my birthday.  So in less than a month I have gained back 12.2 pounds keeping me in the 180's doing the same dance I've done for the past YEAR.  How many times have I lost these same 12 pounds over and over again this past year I cannot even tell you.

All I know, is that I need more long-term support at home.  I can't do this alone.  I thought Beachbody would help but it was an added stressor.  Add on that we have a special function to go to on September 10th and I am already dreading it because I know I will be presented with food choices that aren't in line with my goals.  It makes me anxious to be honest.  I worry about following plan at functions because I worry people will comment and to be honest, it makes me uncomfortable to think people watch my food.  "Did you have enough?"  "Do you want more?"  All questions that give me anxiety because you don't want to be rude or seem like you're not eating, but so often options in line with low-carb aren't available and I hate drawing attention to myself.  Like, being in the spotlight makes me really uncomfortable.

But I just want to be healthy.  I am still overweight, I want to FOR ONCE IN MY LIFE, step on the scale and be in the "normal" weight range.  I haven't been a normal weight since at least junior high.  I want to know what that looks like.  I want to know what it's like to have an occasion to go to and not be worried about what I'll look like when I have to sit down.

But I need help to reach my goals.  I need not to be presented with options that go against my low carb plan.  YES, I have tried this past year to switch it up and do another plan that was not low-carb and that was also a cheat fest and I did not lose weight.  So please, please, don't suggest that to me because yes, I tried it, and no, it did not work.

As an end note, if a family member has goals, whatever they may be, don't enable their bad habits that prevent them from reaching them.  It may seem helpful in the moment but in the long run you are doing nothing but damaging them.