Last week, when I met with my therapist, we talked about how I feel like this whole healthiness/weight loss/calorie conscious/workouts/being healthy “thing” has taken over my life. I blog. I respond to emails. I tweet. I listen to friends share their frustrations. I read other healthiness blogs. I work out. I try to be aware of my own eating habits. I cook. And when I’m not doing all of that, I talk about doing it. With friends. Carlos. Carlos’ friends. Co-workers. Carlos’ co-workers. Family. Carlos’ family. Literally…everywhere.
It has come to my attention that my whole entire
life is being consumed with this whole healthiness journey!
It isn’t a bad thing. I mean, we all know that in order to really work through things, you have to talk about it and work through it. But there has to be some balance. And I now find myself having gone from one extreme to the other. Let me introduce you to…
OPERATION: ssshhhhhh
I’m still going to blog. I’m still going to tweet. I’m still going going to reply to emails. I won’t shun people who attempt to talk about something healthy related around me. So…what is this OPERATION: ssshhhh about you ask? Glad you asked!
Here’s how Operation: sssshhhhh will work: From this point forward, I will make my relationship with Carlos my safe zone. I will not talk about my weight, my need to work out, how hungry or full I am, calories, nutrition or anything else healthy related. I need to (want to) remove food/calories, etc from being the focal point of our relationship. I want our relationship to be a safe zone where I can feel like I don’t have to hide how hungry or full I am.
Carlos is on board. While he has never complained about this before, we both agree that a healthy relationship has conversational diversity. We also talked about how I need to just start with one area of my life, one area that I can concentrate on finding the balance first.
To be honest, this is actually my second week working on this. I started it last week and just never mentioned it. And while I really tried, I did catch myself bringing stuff up. It’ll definitely take time — but it’ll be worth it. And I’m excited for my safe zone to be with Carlos!
Do you set conversational boundaries in any of your relationships?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
I totally know what you mean. In my first relationship it is what defined it. I hated the way I looked, needed my man to validate me..and it ended up ruining me..because that is what I needed. We are more than weight, working out, obsessively eating healthy foods and starting over. I think that many times we hide behind all of those things like we did our weight. Either which way, it’s about getting to love and appreciate the now. not controlling anything other then blossoming into your whole self. Maybe do a question a day with Carlos for a month. Questions you’ve always wanted to ask..and talk about those for 30 minutes. It’s weird to ‘let go’ of the thing which we define ourselves by..that’s why people stay fat, underweight, in booze, shitty realtionships. But the point is..is that we are more than one area.
LOVE THIS AND ADORE CARLOS.
on the same but different note people always seem surprised when I say that fitness is NOT my passion.
it is something I do
and part of my life.
but to me PASSION is what I wanna read about, talk about, watch movies about, think about, what brings me unmitigated JOY.
that’s not fitness.
fitness is but a small facet of my life.
xo xo
love this post. I think it’s about harnessing those other truths about who we are..that enable us to be what we have always wanted to be.
I hope that you’ll find a way, at least for awhile, to give up talking about food / weight / exercise with more than just Carlos. Even if it’s just for a week, don’t blog! See how that feels. Small steps and you’ll get there. There is a thin line between passion, obsession, and compulsion….
OH GIRL! I know what you mean! I get really tired to be known amongst people as “The Girl Who Lost All That Weight” …
I had the exact same problem in my relationship, at first, especially since my boyfriend also went the same process as me. It wasn’t just MY concerns anymore, but OUR concerns .. We spiraled down to a certain place where we were obsessed about it, texting each other about how much we weighted, how many calories we ate or how long we worked out.
And at some point, I had a major breakdown. Because I felt like when I “failed” (which I DID NOT), I failed the both of us. We completely cleared out our relationship of it, and even though we still hint about it, we’re not obsessed anymore, we just regurlaly support each other ….. and this is amazing!
Good luck on YOUR journey through that, I know it can be really hard
Haha I love the photo montage. I don’t have conversational boundaries as of now but reading this makes me think maybe I should. I tend to get pretty obsessive and luckily thats focused on health and fitness now rather than junk food and tv like it used to be, but balance is key.
I can definitely empathise with you here. The whole fitness/calories/weight issue has indeed beceome the focus of my life, and has spilled over into other areas of my life. At times, I feel like it’s all I talk about. My husband has mentioned that to me and asked that I not talk about only that all the time, as it seemed to be becoming an obsession of mine
. This is something I’m working on, too. Sometimes I can not talk about it, but I’d sure like to get out of my own head about it. 
Good luck!
My boyfriend and I have conversational boundaries. He thinks it would be healthy for me to lose tons of weight. He is not permitted to ask how much I exercise nor can he criticize what I choose to eat. When I first felt like I wanted to lose weight he would nag every 5 minutes in the gym until one day I screamed at him in front of the whole gym. Needless to say I ended up hating the gym after going with him (used to love going by myself in college)… Or at least the feelings I got thinking about the experience while using the same machines. Ultimately I had stopped going to the gym altogether. I now have an elliptical machine at home.. at first before we set up the boundaries, he would nag, now I just have to learn to like exercising again.
Great idea. I try and not make my weight loss journey a topic of conversation with friends or family unless they bring it up. My husband, best friend and mom are three people who I know I can talk to if I want to discuss my weight loss journey, and even then I really try and limit the constant conversation on the topic the girlfriend. We’ve known each other since elementary school, fight the same battles with weight and she’s had recent great success with her weight and fitness. I’ve even started calling her “Dr…so-and-so” because she’s been there every time I need to vent, celebrate or work through a weight loss struggle.
Like you really wanted to know all that, but anyway…. I wish you all the best on this new venture in your journey.
Jen,
I’m also excited to see/hear how this helps you and Carlos grow in your relationship, and in other ways 
I can totally relate to this!! I actually have struggled with thoughts of weight loss consuming me in all of my previous attempts. Whenever I’d try to start losing weight, it was all I could think of. Day and night. When I’d fail, I’d be so burned out from thinking about weight loss, food, calories, etc., it would begin to have the opposite effect, and I’d think NOTHING of healthiness. That was one of the things that kept me away from trying again for so long – I hated being consumed with these thoughts.
This time I really, REALLY made an effort to find a balance, because I knew I couldn’t sustain all of that one-dimensional thinking.
I’m really proud of you for seeing that it was taking over too much of your thinking, and working to fix it!
You are pretty awesome!
-kim
Good luck with working on this.
I went through a similar stage during my journey to better health and once I learned to find balance I felt way less consumed by it. And my friends and family were thankful too. LOL
I saw your article in Shape yesterday and I was so proud! I read your blog everyday and you are definitely an inspiration! I went around showing my family, “see this girl, I read her blog everyday she’s great!” and telling them all about your story, I was so proud, i felt like my friend was a success story in shape it was pretty cool! Congratulations!
Congratulations Jen on making such a big step!!
Also proud of you for finding what sounds like a great therapist!!!
Good luck on your new journey!!
I can very much relate to this… how my whole life seems to sometimes be much too focused on this one thing. I love blogging about it, and reading other blogs about it. But sometimes wonder if that is a good thing. Yes, it motivates me, inspires me, helps me with accountability, gives me an outlet… BUT it keeps me focused on it too. My husband does not work outside the house and he reads my blog so often we do indeed discuss the stuff.
I just started today and I can’t stop talking about how healthy I am going to be..I am driving everyone crazy too so I can definately relate!
I think if YOU feel like you’re talking/thinking about it too much, then you should cut back. I dont think it has to be ‘all or nothing’ tho. It’s nice to share everything with your partner, its nice that he listens/contributes. But it shouldn’t define you or your relationship. It’s good to spread your interests, I think.
good luck
Tusc
Zliten is very patient with me, but I got the feeling after a while he was getting sick of hearing about it, so I started to blog. Now, I got so used to blogging about it, he has to keep up on my blog to know about what is going on in my fitness world. It takes a balance.
We still talk about it sometimes, especially since he’s started running/biking/racing a bit, but I try not to gush for hours. Honestly, now that it’s been a few years, I’m much less obsessed and it doesn’t take that much work.
Excellent question…do you set conversational boundaries in relationships? excellent!! excellent!! thanks for the question–it is something we all need to practice and when we goof, start over again…examine each relationship and think about where you could set some boundaries..what a discipline builder and very refreshing to that other person in the relationship!!!