Newlywed and Gaining Weight

[NewDirections]

I got married 7 months ago and also started a new job 2 months ago. I've gained about 15 lbs due to my eating habits. I'm great with exercise, I work out 5 times a week, it's food that has been the issue. Since I've been with my husband, I started eating richer foods and larger portions. I also eat sweets like there is no tomorrow, something that I didn't do a year ago. I hate how I look now and I'm ready for a health change in my eating habits.

Lately I've been thinking about why my eating habits changed. I realized that most of the issue is eating for emotional reasons due to stress. I've had a lot of change in the past year, and while it's been good change- a sweet husband and a great job- it's been difficult to adjust to it.

I know that I want to change and use food to fuel my body and not as an emotional crutch. I feel terrible how I look now and I'm disappointed that I let this happen. I'm working on being more conscious on what I'm eating and focusing on how I feel when I eat.

Has anyone else had this experience? What has been helpful to you?

[texmati]

me! me! I gained 70 pounds in the first year of marriage. It was super, super, super difficult. being married was a big change for me, even though I love my husband. I would gain so much weight each month, that people though I was pregnant.

I'd gain over 5 pounds in a month without realizing it. I had no idea what was going on with my body. I think it was the stress. I always ate when I was stressed, (which is ok), but I was just unusually stressed, all the time after I got married.

I wish I had more advice... I'm still working on it. I've finally 'stalled' and have stopped gaining weight... I'll think about this and post back.

[texmati]

I just want to add... I know how difficult it is. I just wanted to offer you a huge hug, from someone who's nearly two years into marriage.

[NewDirections]

Thanks aquarian for your response. It just made me feel better to write this and see that someone else has struggled with the same issue. I think that I'm stress eating too and now I'm trying to acknowledge my feelings and really feel them and not just stuff them away with food.

[NewDirections]

I've been doing better with the emotional eating for the past few days and that's made me feel good about myself. Last night DH and I had a horrible fight and today I've been feeling really down. When I was driving home I was so tempted to stop and get some oreos. I'm so glad that I resisited. I'm still sad though about the fight but that's ok. I'd rather be sad and feel it than feel sick from eating too many oreos trying to self medicate.

[texmati]

: Yeah! down with oreo's!

I'm so glad you've posted. I've been thinking about you... I know how terrible it is to be newly married and gaining weight-- an also to be married and not fantastically happy! I'm on vacation this week... and I'm really hoping to get a few pounds off of me in the next few weeks.

[NewDirections]

I've had some victories and setbacks the past few days. Weekends are when my husband and I spend the most time together and eat together the most. So on weekends, it's especially challenging for me to control my eating. I've been stressed about our relationship and today I've been stress eating, but it hasn't been as severe as on other occasions. It's something for me to continue working on. I do consider it a victory that I'm more aware of the issue and working on changing my behavior.

What I'm most proud of was I went to either the drugstore twice this weekend, which is usually when I'd buy junk food. Well, I resisted both times! : One time I was really tempted, and the other time it wasn't even on my mind. I'm really happy about that.

How are you doing?
I hope you have a wonderful vacation!

[texmati]

wonderful about the drug store! Celebrate those victories-- they are bigger than you think.

Honestly... vacation is not going so well. Yesterday I just kept eating and eating even though it was physically uncomfortable to do so. My mom had made some food and brought it by. I just kept eating like it was going out of style.:

At some point in the last few years, I just lost all my fight. Lost my fight for my marriage, my happiness, my sanity and my health. I'm a total harry potter freak... and was thinking this afternoon about the line where harry asked dumbledore "She wouldn't even raise her wand to save her life"... or something. I was just like that, I just had lost all ability to help myself... and I was like that for nearly a year.

But! Now I can wake up and say that today is a new day! I feel certain that I will get myself back into a place where I can loose this weight.

I know all this must sound very melodromatic... but I just wanted to applaud you for taking controll of this situation before it got to you, the way it got to me. :

[jlutgendorf]

Hey TT and aquarian, have either of you looked into counseling to learn about other ways to deal with stress?

I'm a total stress eater as well and I've found that there are generally a few ways to combat the stress eating.

1) substitute the food for something healthy and filling, so instead of a cookie, munch on your favorite veggies or a handful of nuts (the protein is filling). I like this as you don't have to NOT eat, you just try to eat something that is better for you.

2) learn about other ways to handle stress first. Exercise, breathing, journaling, meditation, etc. Give that a try first and if you still want to eat afterward, then go ahead.

3) just eating! I gotta admit, that every now and then, you just have to have a cookie! Plus it's motivation for other times when you don't eat the cookie. I always tell myself I'll wait right now and maybe next week I'll have the cookie.

None of that works 100% of the time, but I have found that counseling helped a lot. I probably have gained 30+ lbs since I met my partner. I'm just now (6 years into being with him!) trying to loose some of them.

~Julia

[NewDirections]

Now I can wake up and say that today is a new day! I feel certain that I will get myself back into a place where I can loose this weight.

That is an awesome way to think, that everyday is a new opportunity. Just because yesterday I ate too many cookies does not mean that today I need to do the same. Each day is a clean slate.

I'm just curious, how did you lose your fight? If it's too personal to answer I understand. Losing myself and my fight is one of my fears.

I have a counseling appointment on 10/22 to discuss my difficulties in being married and stress eating. I'm so looking forward to it and I think that talking about it regularly will really help. It is really helpful to me to have support, both online and in real life.

[texmati]

Tatiana... I don't mind-- if you can get something out of it, it's well worth it. Please keep in mind, my situation is most likely slightly different than yours, in that my MIL lives with us, (we support her). My situation is, I think, like a lot of newlyweds in that my life after marriage was a lot different than what I had imagined/hoped/dreamed it would be.

I think what caused me to break was a combination of two things--

1) I gave up hope that my life could change. I really, truly believed that nothing could could change for the better. That my life would be horrible for as long as mil was living with us, and that mil would live with us forever. I was doomed! In my free time, I vacillated between planning my escape from my life (getting a job transfer to europe) and planning exactly how I could kill myself and make it look like an accident. At one point, I even had an alarm in my phone for a date after which I could kill myself. I was that certain that my life was going to be awful forever and ever.
2) I cut myself off from everyone I knew, and counted on my whole life. TBH, this is the first time that I'm actually telling anyone about it. I felt *so* much pressure to be happily married, for everythign to be picture perfect (mostly from myself). How could I go back to my parents and say... I don't like living with mil? That I'm unhappy? My best friend-- how could I go back and say, oops, I fucked up. I don't want to live like this anymore. Some combination of pride and shame kept me from reaching out to someone that could show me my center when I couldn't find myself. Someone that could light up a few steps towards happiness and a life that I could not only survive but succeed in, when all I could see was darkness.

That's how I lost myself and my fight. I got it back by going to a therapist, which was a very, very difficult thing for me to do, but it turned my life around. What counselling did for me was exactly what my mom, sister, or best friend would have done if they knew I was drowning-- threw me a rope, and cheered me on as I pulled myself back to shore. (still pulling btw!)

I know this sounds melodramatic... Like I must have spent the last two years moping around and being awful to everyone. TBH, I think that this was bubbling underneath the surface... most people did not know that I was unhappy, as far as I know. I joked, and laughed, my husband and I flirted and went on dates, bought a house, are in the process of fixing it up, daydreamed about starting a family, all during this time. Except for, of course, the weight. I just kept gaining weight. When I was super upset at night, I used to hide in the closet and eat. Pretty soon, eating was my stress response for everything. Bored, happy, worried, angry, stressed, before writing an email at work, right after coming home, before going to bed ect. Everything was punctuated with food.

Anyways... sorry to go on so long. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I thought all of this was normal. Every last bit of it, ("...everyone thinks about killing themselves sometimes".) I wish that I had recognized that I was slipping. I think if I hadn't been so intent on isolating myself maybe someone else would have recognized it.

[NewDirections]

Aquarian- Thank you for sharing your story. What you experienced was very difficult. I really can't imagine the stress of living with my mil and also feeling cut off from people. That shows so much strength to get counseling. I'm glad that your life has turned around. That is a remarkable journey.

Eating has been my stress response too. Whenever I felt stressed I'd eat junk My DH and I got married in March and things were going pretty well for about 6 months. We had our ups and downs, but I never really dealt with the things in the relationship that were bothering me. When I tried we'd just end up having a bad argument, so I just stopped trying and that was a cause of my stress eating.

I've gained weight and feel gross. One day I realized that I don't want to be this weight anymore. I decided to actually feel my feelings, good and bad, and not stress eat anymore. I just realized that feeling fat made me feel worse than the good feelings I had from stress eating junk food. This made me angry at DH too, perhaps irrationally. I just thought that if our relationship were not so challenging I wouldn't want to binge as often. But, I shouldn't blame him because it was my choice to eat.

As a result of not stress eating anymore, I've brought up many issues that bothered me and not just let them go like I did before. So because of that, things are really rocky between us now. I feel very depressed about our relationship, but I do feel better and more in control of my eating.

[Krisis]

Yeah, I gained 70lbs the year I got married too. It was especially difficult for me as I had just lost that 70 lbs the year before! Our big vice was eating out - we would come home from work too tired to cook, so we'd stop and get a delicious dinner at a Mexican place here (Cafe Rio, mmm) and come home and eat it while watching TV.

DH and I have sworn thousands of times, no more sweets, no more eating out. We just suck at staying with it

[NewDirections]

Hi Krisis,

I've noticed too that my eating habits have changed with being married. Before I got married normally on Sunday mornings, I'd go to the gym and have this big workout. Now, it's our time to go out to breakfast because my husband and I both have Sundays off from work. I do still go to the gym other times though.

I feel like I eat more around my DH and I seem less aware of portion sizes. This is something I'd like to work on.

[MamaNan]

I have so been there. Before I got married I was in uber good shape and very conscientious about what I ate. However, after the marriage I started to eat more like my husband...and I started to gain weight. I only gained about 10 pounds, but it was enough so that none of my pants fit and that is an awful feeling. I was in weight watchers and I used to get so down on myself because I would go every week, pay, weigh in, and gain weight. Sometimes I would eat an entire package of Newman Os or a huge bag of M & Ms and then I would feel sick and sad.

Anyway, let me tell you what changed things for me...having a baby (and I am in no way advocating that you have a baby for this purpose, but it has been one of the many blessings from my daughter). When I was pregnant I gained 45 pounds because for the first time in my life I ate whatever I wanted without giving it a second thought. My only concern was eating a healthy, balanced diet to nurture my baby. I ate all the cheese and ice cream I wanted. I ate an organic diet of whatever I wanted. For me it was the best feeling to go to the midwife, get on the scale, realize I had gained weight and be proud.

After my daughter was born, I lost about 20 pounds right away. She is now 15 months old and the rest is slowly going away. The thing is, I don't obsess anymore. I focus on eating a healthy diet so I have healthy breast milk for my baby. I can't explain why this change happened. I think it is because I saw what my body was capable of and I have so much more respect for my body than I ever did before. I don't ever want to berate or hate my body again. Because of this change in my perception about myself I don't get the crazy obsessions about food that I used to.

I know that this probably doesn't help, but I just wanted to share the my struggle with weight.

[texmati]

Originally Posted by TatianaTiger

Aquarian- Thank you for sharing your story. What you experienced was very difficult. I really can't imagine the stress of living with my mil and also feeling cut off from people. That shows so much strength to get counseling. I'm glad that your life has turned around. That is a remarkable journey.

Thanks so much for your kind words! This weekend has really taught me how close I still am to that part of my life. I found out that my MIL has been talking about how horrible I am to her to my mom. (and a few other members of the family as well). I can't tell you how crushed I am. (Well... about half a cup a french fries, a baja chalupa from taco bell and maybe some ice cream for breakfast today crushed).

It hurts so much that I was trying not to reach out to my mom for support, because I was afraid that if my mom and MIL didn't get along, that everyone would be worse off. But MIL doesn't care. I just really hate that woman. I don't know how I'm going to get over this.

Sorry if this OT, but to get it back on track... it's times like this that I really feel that eating is worth it. I just like the food. How do you not over eat when you are super, super upset?

[NewDirections]

I found out that my MIL has been talking about how horrible I am to her to my mom. (and a few other members of the family as well). I can't tell you how crushed I am. (Well... about half a cup a french fries, a baja chalupa from taco bell and maybe some ice cream for breakfast today crushed).

Oh, I'm so sorry. That must be a terrible feeling. It must be really difficult and stressful to live with someone that you do not like. I'd feel really betrayed that my MIL was talking to my mom and also feel like she was "telling mom" on me like a little kid would do. It sounds like your MIL is seeking attention. Would it be possible to talk to your MIL about it?

Sorry if this OT, but to get it back on track... it's times like this that I really feel that eating is worth it. I just like the food. How do you not over eat when you are super, super upset?

I don't thing this is OT because I believe that it is stress that is causing emotional eating and what happened to you is certainly stressful. I can only tell you what is helpful to me in how I resist overeating when I'm stressed. It can be so hard. What helps me is being honest with how I'm feeling and why I want to eat. So I say to myself, "I really want to eat because I'm feeling sad, stressed, worried, etc" I look at why I'm feeling that way and if there are things I can do to feel better. It doesn't work all the time but it has helped. There have been times when I've done that and still eaten because I just wanted to. I also think it's important to be kind and gentle to yourself when you know you're stressed just like you would with your hubby or friend if you knew they were feeling that way.

One thing I try to remember is that stress eating will make me feel better for maybe 30 minutes, but worse afterwards. It makes me feel so much better to resist and then later I feel happy that I resisted rather than guilty for eating things that I didn't want to eat. I also was listenting to a program on overeating and they said this: It you knew your pet was stressed or not feeling well you wouldn't put a huge amount of food in their dish to make them feel better. So why do we do that with food to ourselves?

I hope you feel better. HUGS! Give me an update when you can.

[NewDirections]

Thanks MamaNan for your response. It is so helpful to me to hear from others who have faced this.

Sometimes I would eat an entire package of Newman Os or a huge bag of M & Ms and then I would feel sick and sad.

I have so been there, and that is not a good feeling! I feel so ashamed and out of control afterwards.

Anyway, let me tell you what changed things for me...having a baby (and I am in no way advocating that you have a baby for this purpose, but it has been one of the many blessings from my daughter). When I was pregnant I gained 45 pounds because for the first time in my life I ate whatever I wanted without giving it a second thought. My only concern was eating a healthy, balanced diet to nurture my baby. I ate all the cheese and ice cream I wanted. I ate an organic diet of whatever I wanted. For me it was the best feeling to go to the midwife, get on the scale, realize I had gained weight and be proud.

After my daughter was born, I lost about 20 pounds right away. She is now 15 months old and the rest is slowly going away. The thing is, I don't obsess anymore. I focus on eating a healthy diet so I have healthy breast milk for my baby. I can't explain why this change happened. I think it is because I saw what my body was capable of and I have so much more respect for my body than I ever did before. I don't ever want to berate or hate my body again. Because of this change in my perception about myself I don't get the crazy obsessions about food that I used to.

What you said was really beautiful, thanks for sharing. We are planning on ttc next year. I hope that I have the same experience you did.

[texmati]

Originally Posted by TatianaTiger

Oh, I'm so sorry. That must be a terrible feeling. It must be really difficult and stressful to live with someone that you do not like. I'd feel really betrayed that my MIL was talking to my mom and also feel like she was "telling mom" on me like a little kid would do. It sounds like your MIL is seeking attention. Would it be possible to talk to your MIL about it?




I don't thing this is OT because I believe that it is stress that is causing emotional eating and what happened to you is certainly stressful. I can only tell you what is helpful to me in how I resist overeating when I'm stressed. It can be so hard. What helps me is being honest with how I'm feeling and why I want to eat. So I say to myself, "I really want to eat because I'm feeling sad, stressed, worried, etc" I look at why I'm feeling that way and if there are things I can do to feel better. It doesn't work all the time but it has helped. There have been times when I've done that and still eaten because I just wanted to. I also think it's important to be kind and gentle to yourself when you know you're stressed just like you would with your hubby or friend if you knew they were feeling that way.

One thing I try to remember is that stress eating will make me feel better for maybe 30 minutes, but worse afterwards. It makes me feel so much better to resist and then later I feel happy that I resisted rather than guilty for eating things that I didn't want to eat. I also was listenting to a program on overeating and they said this: It you knew your pet was stressed or not feeling well you wouldn't put a huge amount of food in their dish to make them feel better. So why do we do that with food to ourselves?

I hope you feel better. HUGS! Give me an update when you can.

Tatiana Tiger, thanks so much for the kind words... I don't know why its so difficult for me to talk about this.

I blew up at DH on sunday night... I accused him of being two faced (totally unfair). He's supposedly going to talk to his mom today about this mess tonight.

As for me... I didn't reign in my eating until I left for my business trip on Tuesday. I had a few stressful moments at work but decided to walk around the building instead of getting something to eat (pat on back). I'm also trying to eat sensibly for lunch and dinner-- even though it's free.

I'm also thinking it might be nice to talk to my mom about all this MIL stuff finally... mommies really are the best thing in the world.

Mama nan... your words are so inspiring. I hope that one day I can be at peace with myself on this issue.

[NewDirections]

As for me... I didn't reign in my eating until I left for my business trip on Tuesday. I had a few stressful moments at work but decided to walk around the building instead of getting something to eat (pat on back). I'm also trying to eat sensibly for lunch and dinner-- even though it's free.

Yay! It's really important to acknowledge moments that we overcome stress eating. That is wonderful. :

I think talking to your mom would be really helpful. It will probably make you feel better and give you some perspective. Have you had any interactions with you MIL since you found out she was talking about you?

I binged on Tuesday. I was upset and felt stressed so I had pizza and cupcakes I felt so gross and disappointed in myself afterwards. I'm back on track now and I feel more in control. Things are really rocky in my marriage right now. I've been really stressed about it. I feel vulnerable to stress eating and I don't want to! I'm concerned about tomorrow because I have the day off and my hubby works so I'll be alone. I hope I choose to overcome temptation and eat healthfully.

I've been keeping a food journal for the past two weeks and it's helping. Some days it's hard to be disciplined to write in it though. Then it doesn't do any good.