The Andrea Diet Plan

I think Hubby's giving up on his diet, or at least close. He complained to me yesterday that he's gained back almost all the weight he lost. And the day before he made a statement that was basically "I'm just going to be fat and die when I'm 50."

My reaction to this was to lightly joke, "What, are you so eager to leave me?"

His response? "That way you'll get rid of me quicker."

I know some of this negative attitude has to do with his injury and being in a lot of pain. But the last two weeks he has definitely been "cheating" on his food plan. The fact of the matter is, he loves food, and without finding something to replace that need to eat chips and brownies and cookies, he's going to keep coming back to it.

I've tried to be supportive, but mostly I'm working hard to not get sucked in to his cheating. On his first day home with his injury, I came home to find him making deep fried macaroni and cheese balls. I wasn't feeling well, and the thought of that crunchy, cheesy ball of sin was so tempting. I did wind up eating the littlest one, but I stopped there and went on with my healthy dinner and no evening snack.

I'm so torn about him giving up on this diet. Part of me wants him to succeed, mostly for his health -- I worry about heart attacks and diabetes because he has a family history for both. But there's part of me that would almost be relieved if he quit; he's clearly miserable trying to stick to his low-carb food plan and it's difficult to watch.

Once he mentioned trying my method, but he's never brought it up since. Coincidentally, I emailed one of my friends who attended my Tet party over the weekend and mentioned to her that my sister-in-law and I both noticed that she and her husband looked noticeably leaner. Her reply:

"I’ve adopted the 'Andrea Diet Plan,' which, as you have demonstrated, works wonderfully! We’re just basically trying to step up the exercise a bit and slow down on the eating. The holidays, of course, were bad for us when it comes to stuffing our faces, as I suppose they are for everyone...We’ve been hitting the gym about 10 minutes earlier each morning; I’ve started a bit of weight training again; and we’re of course doing the 'yoga thing,' too. We are certainly not on any kind of strict diet or anything, but we’re trying to watch ourselves. I’ve been doing pretty well on the whole 'no snacking' rule. So, we’ll see. "

Here I am fighting the need to bash myself because I don't think I'm doing well, and here is a friend who thinks my plan "works wonderfully!" Just the kind of morale booster I needed.

Now if I can only get Hubby to try a different approach. But he's not fond of psychology and therapy, so I don't know if he'd be able to really analyze himself and get to the root causes of his eating. I'm convinced tackling the mental/emotional aspect is half the battle, but not everyone is comfortable delving into that. But I think once you do that, the food and exercise fall into place much more easily.