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Love Me Slender: How Smart Couples Team Up to Lose Weight, Exercise More, and Stay Healthy Together - Softcover

 
9781451674521: Love Me Slender: How Smart Couples Team Up to Lose Weight, Exercise More, and Stay Healthy Together
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Based on cutting-edge research with more than 1,000 married couples, this “revolutionary book” (Harville Hendrix, PhD, coauthor of Making Marriage Simple) shows you how to bolster your resolve by strengthening your relationship, offering a fresh approach to weight loss that will turn your spouse from diet saboteur into your most loyal health ally.

First comes love, then comes marriage...then comes a larger pant size? Many couples find themselves gaining weight as they settle into a relationship, but some couples manage to buck this trend. They exercise (together or separately), they support each other’s healthy eating habits, and their relationships are stronger as a result. What are their secrets?

It turns out that many of us are ignoring the most powerful tool we have to help us get healthier and stay healthier—our spouse or significant other. For more than twenty years, Drs. Thomas Bradbury and Benjamin Karney, codirectors of the Relationship Institute at UCLA, have been studying how couples communicate around these issues, witnessing firsthand how partners can help (and hinder) one another’s progress toward better health. In Love Me Slender, they identify the specific principles that successful couples use in their quest to improve their health.

Love Me Slender offers new solutions based on a remarkable insight: The powerful connection we share with our mate can influence what we eat, how much we exercise, how well we age, and ultimately how long we live. Strengthening this connection, and using it to influence our daily habits, holds the key to better health.

Featuring self-assessments and case studies from real couples working to stay healthy together, Love Me Slender is an eye-opening, uplifting guide to changing the dynamic of your relationship and improving your health—and the health of those you love most.

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About the Author:
Thomas N. Bradbury, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at UCLA and world-renowned expert on marriage and an award-winning teacher and author. He lives in Southern California. Visit UCLARelationshipInstitute.org.

Benjamin R. Karney, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at UCLA and is internationally acclaimed for his research and teaching on couples and relationships. He lives in Southern California. Visit UCLARelationshipInstitute.org.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:
Love Me Slender 1

From Healthy Relationships to Healthy Bodies

A NEW WAY TO THINK ABOUT HEALTH


EAT RIGHT. MOVE MORE. Modern science gives us this simple formula for living well. We know that small, sustained changes to our daily routines—like eating an extra serving of fruits and vegetables at most meals; cutting down on salt, sugar, and red meat; and taking brisk walks on a regular basis—practically guarantee improvements in how we look and feel. Young or old, rich or poor, male or female, biologically blessed or genetically cursed, all of us can reap the benefits that come from the sensible habits that are known to underlie good health.

Medical professionals have been working hard to spread this simple message, and for good reason: the formula works. A healthier lifestyle really does reduce the overall incidence of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease in adults. Maintaining a healthy weight really is one of the best ways to prevent all kinds of cancers, second only to quitting smoking. The federal government, on the hook for covering the rapidly escalating costs of treating these diseases, is also eager for us to change our ways. With her national Let’s Move campaign, First Lady Michelle Obama aims to get us on our feet, and she tends a kitchen garden in the hopes that we will do the same. The decades-old food pyramid has been overhauled to encourage us to eat more fruits and vegetables, and fewer processed carbohydrates and proteins. Public-service ads echo these ideas, billboards tell us what to put on our plates, and the steady drumbeat of research findings, news reports, and healthy-cooking shows tells us exactly what we need to know and do to take better care of ourselves.

The message is coming through loud and clear. Many of us want exactly what the formula promises. Surveys show that we would be willing to give up shopping and watching television, our computers and cell phones, and even sex, wealth, and years of our lives in exchange for slimmer and trimmer bodies. This is more than idle chatter. In the United States, 33 percent of men and 46 percent of women are actively trying to lose weight at any given moment. We spend $60 billion a year on health clubs, diet foods, and dietary supplements in the hope of managing our weight better. We spend more than $6 billion each year on medical treatments like bariatric surgeries that reduce the size of our stomach and help us to feel fuller faster. Our commitment to weight loss and good health is genuine. We want to weigh less, we are willing to make personal sacrifices to be healthier, and we put a lot of our hard-earned cash into our fervent quest to firm up and trim down.

Yet, for all this concern and effort, Americans are no healthier, no slimmer. Some people certainly benefit from the investment, but the vast majority of us aren’t getting any real traction, and the changes we want to make aren’t sticking. If we are dieting now, chances are this is not our first time. Our national health is actually deteriorating and our waistlines are expanding. Two in every three Americans are currently overweight or worse, and experts at Johns Hopkins University estimate that more than 85 percent of us might be in the same state by 2030 if these trends continue.

How bad is it? Even as most people say they want better diets, caloric intake from fast-food consumption is at an all-time high, and consumption of fruits and vegetables has declined. Consider the following:

· The average American consumes twenty-two teaspoons of sugar per day, much of it through the fifty gallons of soda and other sweetened beverages that the average American drinks each year.

· 86 percent of us fail to eat the recommended two pieces of fruit and three servings of vegetables per day.

· 30 percent or more of our total daily calories come from fast food—and about half of all the money we spend on food is spent in fast-food restaurants.

· 90 percent of us consume too much salt every day.

· 80 percent of us fail to meet the recommended Physical Activity Guidelines for aerobic activity and muscle strengthening.

· 70 percent of us engage in vigorous exercise two days or fewer per week.

· 50 percent of us are almost completely sedentary.

In the end, all the government-sponsored billboards, diet pyramids, and public-service advertisements seem less like sensible calls to good health and more like lightning rods for the frustration and anxiety so many of us feel. Think about it: When was the last time you talked to someone—anyone!—who felt really terrific about his or her weight, eating habits, and general health?

Something is wrong. Having a clear, scientifically proven formula is not enough. Government warnings are not enough. Even the threats of diabetes, cancer, and early death are not enough. Somewhere between knowing the formula for good health and weight management and actually being healthy and fit, there is a huge disconnect. What will it take to fill the gap? Another diet that promises magical results? A cool app for our smartphones? Some kind of cream or supplement or boot camp? Some fancy piece of exercise equipment that promises to jiggle and shake us into shape? Unlikely. The same old methods are not getting the job done. Simply turning up the volume on the “eat right, move more” message will not work. A fundamentally different approach is required. And developing that approach requires us to ask: What are we missing? Why, in the midst of all this concern, are we failing to improve our health?
WHY CAN’T WE CHANGE?


For starters, what’s missing is the recognition that putting our desire to be healthy into practice is extremely difficult. We live complex lives, with more stress than we care to acknowledge and less time than we need to do all the things that matter to us the most. We inhabit environments that discourage activity, reward screen time, and tempt us with inexpensive but unhealthy meals. And let’s face it: we aren’t perfect. We give in to the stress and the temptations. Our willpower is rock solid on January 2 but paper-thin by the time the Super Bowl rolls around a month later. Our vow to eat three square meals a day falls by the wayside as demands pile up at work, leading us to eat calorie-laden snacks in the afternoon. Our new running shoes sit idly by when our knees begin to ache or the fatigue of a long week takes its toll. Stuck in stressful lives and “obesogenic” environments, our imperfections become magnified and we easily lose sight of the good habits that we know will benefit us.

The obstacles we face in changing our unhealthy habits shouldn’t come as a surprise, and neither should the dismal failure of most diets. Scholars and public-health educators have searched high and low to explain why it is so hard for us to eat right, and they provide us with several important insights. Biologically, we are not really designed for dieting. Our bodies fight back hard against rapid weight loss, responding to the threat of starvation with a barrage of cravings. From a psychological standpoint, we are not well equipped to keep a healthy lifestyle on track. We start diets and exercise programs with unrealistically high expectations, while overlooking how much self-control and discipline we will need to stay on track. To make matters worse, we consistently underestimate the dangers of consuming high-calorie treats like Snickers and we consistently overestimate the benefits of eating healthier foods like wheat bread. Sociologists and urban planners tell us that the rapid pace of modern life, coupled with the need for two wage earners in the family, saddles us with long commutes while wreaking havoc on our ability to purchase and prepare—much less enjoy—the foods we know to be good for us.

Eat right and move more? Yes, according to the latest science, improving our health requires that we abide by this simple formula. But for many of us, simply hearing the formula is not enough. What’s missing is an approach that acknowledges from the outset how hard it is for us to maintain our health. We need solutions that can be custom-built around who we are and the realities of our daily lives. All the challenges to eating right and moving more can seem daunting. With so many forces aligned against us, we begin to think that our goals for a healthier lifestyle are unattainable. We need new strategies that enable us to take advantage of assets that already surround us, especially if they can guide us around, or through, the obstacles that we are certain to face. Making the real changes that lead to a lifetime of healthy eating and exercise requires that we develop every tool in our arsenal. But what if the “tools” we need aren’t necessarily supplements, or diet books, or exercise DVDs? What if they are the people in our lives?
OUR HEALTH IS EMBEDDED IN OUR SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS


What we eat, how we eat, and whether or not we exercise are all profoundly influenced by our social connections. When a stressed-out coworker orders an unhealthy dessert after lunch, we are tempted to do the same. Conversations with a slimmed-down neighbor get us thinking about what we are cooking for dinner in our own home. Knowing that one of our friends has started to take yoga lessons might encourage us to tag along and make an entirely new set of friends—and then invite other friends to join. Seeing a brother or sister pack on the pounds can force us to take a cold, hard look at our own sedentary lifestyle. The weekly call to our aging parents cannot help but prompt us to question whether we are on the right track for a healthy retirement.

The concern expressed by scientists, government officials, media personalities, and medical professionals is valuable because it alerts us to serious repercussions of ignoring our health. (As if we didn’t know already!) But it is the tremendous influence our closest social relationships have on us that fuels the consistent support and inspiration we need to stay on the path to well-being, and then motivates us to keep pushing forward. Eating right and moving more—especially if we want to do these things on a regular basis and over a long span of time—are easier when we are inspired, cajoled, praised, and supported by the people who matter the most to us in our daily lives.

Alas, most advice about dieting, fitness, and health is not packaged this way. On the contrary, doctors and fitness gurus alike assume that we enact our health behaviors in isolation, as if our relationships were purely incidental to the program. Diet and exercise books are written for individuals, as though one’s friends and family members are not centrally involved—and have no stake in the outcome. Weight-loss companies and gyms, too, market almost exclusively to individuals, overlooking the possibility that someone close to us might feel threatened by the changes we are trying to make. Doctors tell each of us to eat better and exercise more, not knowing whether our coworkers or best friends will support or undermine the recommendation. Workplace wellness programs focus primarily on the employee, not on the spouse baking delicious desserts at home.

Make no mistake: there are plenty of really good diet and exercise books, fantastic weight-loss systems, great gyms, intelligent doctors, and well-crafted workplace wellness programs. We would all be wise to incorporate this information and these activities into our daily lives. But national trends indicate that these strategies are not enough, for most of us, most of the time. Health and fitness are woven deeply and inextricably into our intimate relationships, but nowhere is this simple, powerful fact reflected in the multibillion-dollar industry influencing our decisions about health and wellness. It’s little wonder that so many of us are not collaborating with those around us as much as we might, or as effectively as we might, when it comes to eating the right foods and keeping our bodies moving.

A new way of thinking about health starts with the premise that coworkers, friends, and family members all affect what we eat and how much we move—and that we can’t make progress until we acknowledge their huge influence on us. The best thing we can do to jumpstart changes to our lives is to take advantage of this influence, to use it to our benefit. But whom do we look to first?
THE ANSWER IS BY OUR SIDES


Love Me Slender is rooted in the belief that the relationships we have with other people offer us a fundamentally new set of solutions to the way we consume and burn calories. But one person in particular holds the key to the most promising solutions: your spouse or partner. Among the many people in our lives, no one affects our health more than our intimate partner—and no one in our lives can help us more. Many of us fantasize about how much better our health would be if we had a coach, a personal trainer, an on-call masseuse, and a health-conscious chef. But isn’t it possible that each and every day you are waking up next to the person who is all of these things, all at once?

Millions of us have a loved one, right by our sides, who can encourage us to make great choices about the foods we consume and the exercise we get. Our boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, and partners have the potential to make the pursuit of health far easier than it would be without their support.

Take eating as an example. Eating right takes willpower that ebbs and flows for most of us, but our partners can give us the push that moves us past the pastries and toward the whole grains. Eating right can be discouraging, but our partner can be our cheerleader, celebrating with us when we meet our goals, and spurring us on when the numbers on the scale aren’t quite what we hoped they would be. Eating right may mean giving up pleasures we dearly love (good-bye, Boston cream doughnuts!), but our partner is there to make healthy meals fun, to help us keep the menu fresh, and to distract us from temptation with their welcome presence. Eating right takes extra energy and time, but our partner can share and ease the burden of shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning that healthy eating sometimes requires. Think about all the ways this could work: The buffet at the Super Bowl party is mighty tempting, but our partner can remind us on the drive over about how great we have been about keeping to our New Year’s resolutions. Knowing that a heavy work schedule might cause us to skip lunch and succumb to the siren song of the vending machine, our partner can slip some fresh fruit and a healthy salad into our bag in the morning. Fatigue and achy joints can derail our workout routine, but our partner senses the difference between a legitimate excuse and a lame one, and knows when to push, when to hold back, and when to offer us the Advil.

In short, what looks like an impossible task for us as individuals may be far more accessible when we team up with our closest partner.
WORKING WITH OUR PARTNERS


Deciding to take action about our health and weight necessitates changing the life we share with our partner. If our partner is hesitating to make the same changes we are, the challenges of maintaining healthier behaviors are even greater. Eating right is hard, but it’s far harder with a partner who continues to buy, cook, or eat unhealthy foods—and harder still with a partner who may actually doubt or resent our desire to take better care of ourselves. If you and your partner are not teaming up to promote each other’s health, then you are failing to take advantage of one of the most powerful resource...

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  • PublisherAtria Books
  • Publication date2015
  • ISBN 10 145167452X
  • ISBN 13 9781451674521
  • BindingPaperback
  • Number of pages336
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