In any event, the fact you have had 4 kids in 8 years means you are probably really low on Progesterone. Try getting your doctor to prescribe you some natural bioidentical USP-grade progesterone cream to use topically. Having a child reduces progesterone levels, and you have had 4. Loss of progesterone is one of the things believed to induce Postpartum Depression, but I digress.

Another thing that may be out of whack now that you’ve had 4 kids is your thyroid gland. See about getting your doctor to prescribe you some Liothyronine (Cytomel). It’s basically what they call T3.

Lunges throughout the day will help a lot to help you strengthen your leg muscles and have the strength to be on your feet all day, plus the leg muscles are large muscles that, when strengthened, will burn more calories all day as you go throughout your day. Be sure to use proper FORM. See YouTube videos for demonstrations. If your knees hurt, back off (and perhaps use ice pads).

Good luck with everything. I’m glad your husband was honest, but he could have used a bit better timing and perhaps tact. It’s gotta hurt though.

Second, to know that this God loves me just makes me scratch my head. Out of all the things that there are in this universe, why would He love me? But the more that I have looked into His love the more I have discovered that He loves me because love is His very nature. It would be impossible for Him to be anything but love. And He loves me because He created me to be His friend. So even though I have ignored Him and outright denied who He is, He still pursues my friendship out of His great love for me.

Finally, the truth that He has a plan for my life ties all of it together perfectly. He has created me to be His friend for a specific purpose and being as powerful of God as He is I can have confidence that nothing is going to stand in His way of accomplishing His purpose for me. My existence is not an accident and the things that happen to me are not haphazard. He is working all of life’s experiences together to accomplish His perfect purpose in my life, even when some of those experiences have been hurtful. I can endure it all because I know that God has a purpose for me in the middle of that. Sometimes that purpose is to be a help to someone else but it is always to help me. I can’t always see it but I don’t have to because I know that His love would never allow anything to happen that wasn’t moving me toward His perfect purpose.

I don’t know why God has allowed you to go through this hurtful relationship, but I believe that God is the one who is helping you to wake up. His purpose for you is to now do things differently that allow you to thrive rather than be taken advantage of. God is accomplishing His perfect plan for you and if you focus your attention on Him He is going to lead you into the best place. You can trust Him because He is God and He loves you.

Lord God I thank You for waking up Charlotte. Help her heart to recognize Your leading and to trust enough to follow You. Tell her how You see her as Your precious child, the object of Your love. Build into her the strength of knowing You, Your love and Your purpose for her. Amen.

Charlotte have you ever heard this before? Would you like to know more about God, His love and His plan for you? Let me invite you to visit http://powertochange.com/discover/faith/discoverpurpose to find out more.

You said, “I honestly feel if the above happened and we split up she would lose the weight.” It seems you think she has lost the motivation to lose weight due to her assurance that you are hers and have been for 16 years, and that possibly she is being rebellious and purposefully not trying anymore (by eating treats in front of you, etc.). But there is another possibility — that she would lose the weight in a new scenario because she wouldn’t have the psychological stress of knowing you are observing her habits and thinking negative things (even if you don’t SAY them). Sometimes people do the opposite thing when they feel they are being judged, but it’s not necessarily a conscious or rebellious DECISION to do so.

Another possibility is that she may sense you have lost a certain enthusiasm for her like it was “in the beginning,” and therefore has lost a certain enthusiasm for keeping fit. IOW, you feel she has let you down by gaining weight, but perhaps before THAT began, she sensed that YOU let HER down in the “courting” department. She may not even CONSCIOUSLY have made that connection in her own head or be aware of it possibly being a direct cause of her lack of enthusiasm to stay fit.

You may be saying in your head, “Get svelt again and be sexy again and I’ll treat you like I did in the beginning.” And she may be saying in her head, “treat me like you did in the beginning, and I’ll work on my fitness.” It could be an un-uttered (or even a subconscious) Mexican Standoff!

Maybe try stirring up your imagination and “see her” like she was as a thinner woman when you first got married, and try to re-kindle the fire you felt for her (this may take a little “faking it until you make it” and “operating by faith”) by demonstrating some of the same courting enthusiasm you had for her when you first got married. Think about some of the things you used to do for her, and start doing them again. Simultaneously, try to spruce up your own appearance a bit in whatever way or to whatever degree you feel comfortable.

This may serve to make her a little off kilter, a little nervous about your potential to attract other females, or at the least, see you in a better light and get more motivated to match your efforts. But avoid harping on her or vebalizing criticisms about her weight by all means. If you stop looking at her in a critical way and/or saying things about her appearance WHILE sprucing up YOUR appearance, that may give her a little reverse psychology motivation, she may start wondering about what you are thinking and kick it into gear. In addition, if you rev up the courting behavior at the same time, she would be getting motivation from all sides! I would suggest getting things into gear in the bedroom more enthusiastically, yet do so without wearing yourself out or overdoing it — use this sparingly, spread it out a bit between sessions to give her time to contemplate the next session and think about what SHE can do to bring more to the table herself in response to this new level (actually the former old level) of attention. Perhaps that would “make it worth it” for her to try hard despite being married 16 years. IOW, if you don’t think she thinks it’s “worth it” anymore, maybe you could MAKE it “worth it” by motivating her with some well-timed good lovin! I think rather than slathering her with all this good loving ALL the time, you should “punctuate” her life with it sparingly to give her time to get motivated and “look forward to” the next session, thus increasing her motivation. It’s like if your favorite TV show was on EVERY NIGHT, you might get bored with it, but if it’s only on ONCE A WEEK, you look forward to it and make sure you don’t miss it!

You also said, “But to cut to the chase…If I should love her for who she is..then why is it a one way road? Shouldn’t she love me enough to look good for me?” Perhaps if you start loving her for who she is (despite her current excess baggage), she will in turn, be more motivated to look her best for you.

Of course, all this assumes she is NOT really trying or does NOT really care about her fitness and being attractive to you. That is a BIG assumption. Most women are keenly aware of every wrinkle and lump and abberation from the air brushed “norm” they see in the media, and are typically doing everything they KNOW to do (often with little success, since most of the advice is flawed) to stay their best for their husband because they know “how men are” in this area (even Christian men, unfortunately).

Let’s pretend that it was possible that every negative and unfair thought in your brain was as “visible” to her as every lump on her thighs is to you, and was displayed on an electronic read-out board over the livingroom TV for her to read whether you were in the room or not. Things would be on a little bit of a more equal level then: you could see her faults, and she could ALSO see your faults. Right now, you get to be undercover about your negative thought life, while she has to endure your judgment about every lump and bump that she cannot hide from you. When you think about it like THAT, you may see that her “faults” might be less eggregious than your “faults.” And instead of focusing on her faults, you might be more worried about focusing on yours. Be assured that God DOES see all of this and He may be much less concerned about her lumps and bumps and enjoyment of treats than He does about your current thought life…

You know her the best and you should be able to tell whether she is (1) purposefully rebelling and not caring about her weight and how she looks to you, or (2) whether she IS trying but not a lot of what she is doing is WORKING and perhaps she is losing some motivation as a result of the seeming futility of it all. It would be really unfair if the situation was (2), but you were approaching her like it was (1), in order to give yourself permission to think about and look at other women.

If you are 40, I assume she is past 35. Note that age 35 is when most women start losing their estrogen and progesterone and even some testosterone (yes, women have a LITTLE testosterone). So she is right on target timewise for having these issues, so it’s more likely she IS trying but not much is working due to factors that are currently beyond her control.

If I were you, I would pay for her to see a highly reputable Naturopath to get evaluated for everything. They may start with digestion issues (she may need to take Hydrochloric acid tablets or Apple Cider Vinegar before each meal for awhile to get it moving and/or enzyme tablets), possible candida overgrowth (which is a microscopic parasitic condition caused by taking antibiotics in the past and eating too many refined carbs/sugary foods, and once it gets going it self-perpetuates with cravings that are harder to resist than heroin is for a heroin addict — the typical solution is a combination of an anti-candida supplement (sometimes available OTC and avoidance of refined carbs/sugar), sex hormone loss/imbalance and the need for natural BHRT (an RX), adrenal functioning testing (when your adrenals are shot, almost nothing works to lose weight), thyroid hormone testing (my guess is she has a slow thyroid — the solution may be an Rx for NatureThroid), blood sugar/insulin issues which is usually addressed by taking Metformin/Glucophage and/or a cinnamon bark extract and increasing protein intake while avoiding refined carbs/sugar, leptin resistance which may be addressed by taking OTC “CLA,” “L-carnitine, “L-lycine”, a high quality fish oil and melatonin (OTC), the beginnings of pre-diabetes or what they call Syndrome X, possible Estrogen Dominance (which is when BOTH progesterone and estrogen are low but progesterone is lowER than it should be in RELATION to estrogen – I know it sounds complicated — but the solution is testing all of her sex hormones and supplementing with Progesterone, Estrogen and/or Testosterone and perhaps DHEA), she may have food allergies (when you have undiagnosed food allergies, it causes you to crave the very foods you should avoid, and then those foods wreck havoc with your system and that results in something called Leaky Gut Syndrome which then causes the immune system to launch an attack of sometimes beneficial organs (like the thyroid gland) along with system wide inflammation which can cause brain fog, depression and achy joints and muscles making it difficult to exercise and get moving (which is often addressed by food allergy testing, using the food allergy rotation/testing diet and/or simply avoiding the most common culprits 100% for several months such as GLUTEN, DAIRY, EGGS, PEANUTS, & WHEAT (emphasis on G L U T E N — a very bad actor in the world of groceries). I know most medical plans do not cover Naturopaths, but at least they get to the REAL ROOTS OF PROBLEMS and are able to write prescriptions (in some cases even Naturopaths will write prescriptions such as for thyroid hormone tablets, pharmacautical grade bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) and even blood-sugar balancing medications like Metformin), AND they typically have the patient fill out a comprehensive questionnaire before even the first visit so time is used wisely, and they perform the RIGHT TESTS to get to the real underlying issues quickly, and often they will spend 2-3 HOURS on the patient’s first visit (compare and contrast that with a regular doctor who is only motivated to find a reason to prescribe some crappy prescription and get the patient out of there in 15 minutes). I would rather spend $250 on a 3 hour visit with Naturopath, than pay a $35 co-pay for a crappy 15 minute visit and a script for a worthless drug that will likely have bad side effects.

I’m not sure which part of the country you are in, but you COULD contact Dr. Theresa Ramsey of Scottsdale, Arizona for a referral to a similarly-fantastic Naturopath in your area. Her website may also have some referral info for similar Naturopaths all over the country.

I think what upsets me is within what you said;
“You don’t want to harp on your wife about her weight, start looking at other women, make a bad choice, get caught, lose your family, then run into your “now thin” ex-wife down the road arm in arm with a more handsome man, do you?! ”

I honestly feel if the above happened and we split up she would lose the weight. We have been married 16 years and I guess it’s not worth it for her to try hard (for me) anymore.

And I was not thinking of cheating because of this. My thoughts are more along the lines of I waited (for her) and “gave up” sewing my oats as the world would put it. And she is the only one I will ever be with. And maybe satan is telling me this..but I only have this one life and I would think she would want to put me first. She waited also BTW But sex is just not a big deal for her.

But to cut to the chase…If I should love her for who she is..then why is it a one way road? Shouldn’t she love me enough to look good for me? And like I said before..I think if she just tried (for me)I would feel better. It’s super hard for me to see her eat that junk and not say anything.

You have to think about whether you love the actual “her,” which is her spirit (which you must know from being a Christian), or whether you only love her body (which is subject to the ravages of time, the junk that passes for “food” by the FDA in our restaurants and grocery stores, and which can also be the unwitting victim of toxins in our everyday environment that sometimes cannot be avoided).

Of course God invented sex (not the devil), and He invented beauty and natural sexual attraction, and He knows it’s important (both for the woman and man) to be initially attracted to each other and cause procreation. But He also knows we live on a fallen planet and humans age (however, they don’t in Heaven). God also hopes that, as Christians, we understand our 3-part entity (spirit, soul and body) and that we understand that the real “us” is our spirit, not our body. God probably also hopes that over time, during a marital relationship, two people will come to appreciate and know the Spirit in each other and the physical attributes of the body will “count” less and less in a relationship. Of course, in this advertising-rich environment, our beliefs about what constitutes beauty is constantly being dictated to us and reinforced with subtle (and not so subtle) messages by advertisers wishing to sell a product or service. We must not allow our thinking to become colored by that more than the truth and facts of the Word. Even the Bible tells us not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, and that it is up to US to guard our heart with all diligence.

Surely you no longer look exactly the same as you did when you two married either. Luckily, women seem to grasp this concept about us being our Spirits and not our bodies a little easier than men, and therefore don’t hold their husbands to such a high standard of physical appearance as they age throughout the marriage. IOW, women are seemingly less shallow and tend to focus on the more eternal, intangible and weighty (no pun intended) aspects of a relatioship. Maybe that is partly because women are less bombarded with advertising messages about what their man “should look like” to be accepted as a person. However, lately I do see more emphasis in advertising on men and their appearance, and so over time it may occur that women become somewhat shallow toward their man’s appearance as well, as a result of that type of brainwashing by advertising executives directed at men.

That said, your wife may be craving sweets because she could benefit from taking Metformin/Glucophage and/or a cinnamon bark extract to control her blood sugar/insulin levels, which tend to get out of hand as we age and as our natural hormone levels tend to decrease during pre-pre-menopause, pre-menopause and menopause. IOW, the lessening of our sex hormone levels leads to blood sugar issues secondarily.

In addition, she may benefit from taking natural bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (emphasis on natural, not synthetic). NEVER let any doctor put her on Premarin or Progestin. When estrogen levels fall, there is an overall discomfort which is hard to pinpoint, which may lead to relief-seeking through sweets and refined carbs. The first line of defense is to RESTORE those lost hormones with natural bioidentical hormone replacement, then that “pain and discomfort” will subside on it’s own and sugar cravings will decrease.

Sodas contain High Fructrose Corn Syrup and all forms of corn in the world are now Genetically Modified and dangerous to the blood sugar/insulin balance and weight control. Diet sodas are just as bad, but for different reasons. She may want to try some sparkling/fizzy water or club soda mixed with a little bit of no-sugar-added juice to get that “soda” enjoyment without as much backlash.

That “cottage cheesy” thing is due to aging of the supporting collagen and fibers around the fat stores. Sodas and High Fructrose Corn Syrup cause accelerated aging and cellulite worsening. Many women now use “dry brushing” with a natural bristle brush every day (you can find explanatory videos and demonstrations on YouTube). This helps with lymphatic drainage and release of bloating from too much sodium, also flushing out bloat from the areas of cellulite and strengthening the collagen fibers to reduce the appearance of cellulite. Sodas contain a lot of sodium too. Some people are switching to true sea salt (Himalayan is one good version – see Amazon) to salt their food rather than iodized or non-iodized table salt, which causes bloating and high blood pressure. But true sea salt will not do that. A little research online will show you which quality sea salts are best; sometimes they have a pink hue. Of course, we cannot control which type of salt is used in storebought foods, so using less and less prepackaged foods is helpful. Table salt that causes bloating stretches out the tissues and then, somehow, fat more easily finds its way to be stored there. So not only does high table salt levels lead to HBP, it can lead to actual fat gain. When one has indulged in something salty and feels bloated, sometimes taking a tincture of Dandelion root extract can quickly reverse the ill effects. when I eat something salty, I take the Dandelion WITH IT right away!

Some women find great benefit in taking a super green food such as spirulina or something called “Just Barley” each morning before breakfast. I tastes like you mowed your front lawn and put it in your water, but it’s worth it! This cannot be over-emphasized! That would be great for both of you!

Many women, as they age, start to have problems with their thyroid gland getting too slow, which causes them to gain weight even when reducing caloric intake. She could get hers tested and aim for a TSH of about 0.5 – 1.0. My guess is her TSH level is above 1.0, and may even be above 6 or 10 or higher, which causes cravings for carbs and sugar, lack of energy and inability to lose weight even when following a diet. When your metabolism is slow due to a slow thyroid (hypothyroidism), following a 1,500 calorie diet won’t help much because a 1,500 calorie diet is based on the ASSUMPTION that a person has a normal thyroid/metabolism. Therefore, in order to lose weight in the case of a person with a slow thyroid, they would have to reduce their caloric consumption to something like 800 calories a day, which actually would cause her to go into “starvation mode,” which would cause her body to start getting more “efficient” at using calories! This phenomenon is what causes women to yo-yo diet, gain then lose weight, then have increasingly difficult times losing weight in the future, and often plateau when on any diet, become discouraged and find that when they begin to eat normally, they perhaps remain the same anyway, or even gain weight for awhile. That calorie level would also be detrimental to her nutritional health and make it impossible to have enough energy to exercise! It’s a Catch 22, unless you supplement with thyroid hormones (I like NatureThroid which is better than Synthroid which is SYNTHETIC…). Most doctors’ knee jerk reaction is to prescribe Synthroid, but the body will build a resistance to it over time, and it does not contain the other elements necessary for the thyroid that are needed which ARE in NatureThroid. NatureThroid is a prescription, and with a little prodding, a doctor may be willing to prescribe it instead.

A new-ish thing these days is exploring the possibility of something called Leptin Resistance in obese women. There is no prescription for it, but certain supplements and lifestyle changes can help. For example, taking at least 1,000mg a night of CLA (conjugated lineolic acid) can help, as well as taking Melatonin at night for better sleep (start with a low dose and increase until the desired effect ensues over a period of nights), taking a high quality/pure and mercury-free fish oil supplement, avoiding sugar (especially H.F.C.S.) and exercise (without overdoing it). Taking CHEAP fish oils from COSTCO will backfire, in that mercury contamination worsens obesity and can lead to iron wasting, fatigue and lack of energy to exercise, not to mention a myriad of other medical issues. In addition, the previously-mentioned natural bioidentical hormone replacement therapy helps with Leptin Resistance. Obese people have LOTS of leptin in their system, but their body is ignoring it. Leptin is SUPPOSED to have the benefit of reducing appetite and burning fat, but in someone who is OBESE, it has the OPPOSITE effect! To make the body less resistant to its own plentiful and existing leptin, Estrogen replacement (which is part of Bioidentical HRT mentioned previously), fish oil, CLA and melatonin are key players, according to recent research. If I were to start with one step, I’d do the CLA first. It gave me the fastest results.

I am not a doctor, but I have studied up on these things and even tried them myself.

Remember to “check yourself” and look deep into your inner motives and see if there isn’t an issue there where you are simply using your wife’s natural aging processes as an excuse to “look at other women” as you put it, knowing that you did not have sex until you married. Perhaps you are telling yourself (or, to be more exact, the devil is whispering to you) that because you didn’t have sex until you were married, you now “deserve” to fool around because your wife has gained some weight. The devil is a liar. It starts with the EYES, looking at other women, then the wrong thinking patterns, then the wrong actions. Then the devil will accuse you (he is the accuser of the brethren) of doing wrong actions and abandon you to suffer the inevitable consequences…

You don’t want to harp on your wife about her weight, start looking at other women, make a bad choice, get caught, lose your family, then run into your “now thin” ex-wife down the road arm in arm with a more handsome man, do you?! Know that the information I have put into this message is widely available in ladies magazines, TV and the internet and she will eventually learn about it herself. Put the brakes on your wrong thinking patterns NOW before it gets beyond the “EYE” thing, and back it up to where you don’t even do the “EYE” thing. You know what I’m talking about… You are setting yourself up for a big fall — and that’s what the devil is REALLY after. He wants to hurt you and your family by deceiving you. You are the spiritual head of your household and have a higher level of responsibity in this area and will SUFFER THE MOST if you fail.

It is NOT that she doesn’t care to look good for you — she has a mountain of phenomena working against her efforts, from toxins in the environment, toxins in our food, worthless doctors who do not tell their patients the truth to protect their bottom line, insurance that won’t cover seeing a Naturopath, lying medical “studies” that speak against bioidentical hormone therapy while purposely failing to mention that their tests were done using Progestin and not natural Progesterone, hormone loss starting around age 35 which needs to be replaced naturally right away, years of dieting that has ruined her metabolism and forced it to NOT respond to future dieting, etc., etc.

See if you can help your wife incorporate some of these suggestions WHILE YOU STRAIGHTEN OUT YOUR THINKING (AND SEEING) PATTERNS. Submit yourself to the Lord, resist the devil and he will flee from you. The win-win would be if she can improve her physical health and you can improve your spiritual health simultaneously! Don’t even let the devil START lying to you.

My problem is my wife says it’s none of my business. She admits she wants to look good for people. So I want to know why she does not care enough to look good for me. She is NOT fat btw, but the “cottage cheese” areas are starting to show pretty good. I think she feels as long as she looks good with clothes on then thats good enough.

I may be shallow but I know her body type and if she lets go she WILL get fat. And she eats treats all the time. After dinner it’s cookies, popcorn, or something..most of the time it’s not a lot but can be 2-3 different treats. And she loves coke but tries to drink diet sodas.

So do I have any right to get upset? Or should I just sit back and watch and then be expected to not see good looking women? And I hink I would not have this problem IF she tried…or at least attempted to not eat sweets around me. And then claim she is healthy, but then here in a month before going to see her sister she will diet pretty hard.