Gain Weight…Lose Your Mate

By Carl Turner

Gain WeightLose Your Mate takes a critical and somewhat
controversial analysis of the impact that excessive weight gain can
have on a relationship. This is a topic that is rarely discussed publicly
and only at a minimum between couples etc. The negative impact
of excessive weight gain can lead to the breakup of many otherwise
happy couples and the tearing apart of families. Gain WeightLose
Your Mate brings this discussion from the closet to the living room
and opens the door to honest, frank discussions between couples
discussions that are long overdue.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 13, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462815098

Carl Turner

Carl Turner is a retired pediatrician who has authored poetry and works concerning nature and theology. He enjoys reading classics and studying nature. He and his wife, Diane, have three grown married children and seven grandchildren and live in East Texas.

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Copyright © 2011 by Carl Turner.

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Contents

Introduction

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

INTRODUCTION

All of my life I have heard different men comment or complain about their mates/wives in various ways. As a kid and in my earlier life I did not pay very much attention to their complaints and actually I had no reason to take the complaints seriously since I had not experienced the things that they were discussing. Actually I was somewhat confused because many of the women they were complaining about looked very good to me and I didn’t understand their frustration. As I look back, most of the complaints centered around how their mates looked to them after gaining weight. Now that I have grown older I still hear the same complaints from men about their mates weight gain but there is a sharp edge and frustration in their conversation. I concluded that this was a topic that had not been addressed in any great detail because it was obvious to me that there was a lot of pain and hurt being expressed by these men and their mates didn’t appear to be listening. In the process of my research, there is one topic that really tends to get every man’s blood to the boiling point… and that is their mate’s weight gain. No other topic tends to bring up as much emotion as this topic, even amongst the most religious or family oriented man.

As a result of these discussions I decided to begin research on this topic in more detail. I have to admit that I was shocked at the degree of hostility and resentment that many men have about mates who gain weight after years of marriage etc. Let me begin by saying that this book is not an indictment on large or plus sized women as a whole. It is addressed primarily to those women who were a certain size at the time that they married or when they first met their mate and have over time allowed their bodies, for whatever reason, to gain significant weight over a period of time. As a point of reference I describe significant weight gain as forty or more pounds since entering their relationship. Why did I choose forty pounds vs. fifty, sixty or some other weight? Primarily because most of the men that I interviewed stated that they understood that their mate may gain a few pounds and they were willing to accept this fact. What they could not accept was excessive gain with no serious effort to remove or control the weight. The acceptable figure that came up the most was between twenty to forty pounds depending upon how long they had been with their mate, the number of children and other factors such as their mate’s medical history. I arbitrarily picked forty pounds because it fell just outside of the range that most men stated was the acceptable level for weight gain by their mate and to provide just a little benefit of the doubt for women who have gained weight. The fact of the matter is that most men do not want to see their mates gain over thirty pounds for any reason and anything over that amount is a guaranteed recipe for future problems within the relationship. Then there is the other end of the spectrum and that is the man who has a problem with any weight gain on the part of their mate. Even I have to admit that this attitude borders on being unreasonable.

I am convinced that far more marriages and relationships have been broken over this topic than any other single topic that could be discussed even though this is not normally the reason stated by most people, in particular women, when speaking about problems in their relationships. Based upon the information that I have compiled over the past several years I am convinced that over 50 % of problems in a marriages are directly related to a woman’s weight gain. Equally important to me is the amazing amount of unhappiness in many marriages over this single issue. It appears to be taboo to admit that a marriage or relationship ended because a woman would or could not control her weight, thus it is rare indeed the woman who will admit that her weight increase is the biggest problem in her relationship.

This book does not apply to women who obviously have no control over their situation such as illness, surgeries, etc. that prohibit exercise or proper diet and other issues; however, there are very few people who fit into these categories. The vast majority of women do have control over their weight in the situations that I will be discussing. As a matter of fact I am convinced that most have almost total control in spite of what some psychologist and marriage counselors may try to lead us to believe.

I have reached several conclusions that I will be discussing in this book that if taken seriously will have a major impact on relationships. I realize that there will be some women who will see this as an attack on large or plus sized women by a sexist male chauvinist pig who does not have a clue on this subject and has no right to be masquerading like a marriage counselor or an expert. I can agree with those feelings if that was the purpose of this book. Fortunately I am happy to explain that I am neither a marriage counselor nor sexist male chauvinist pig and frankly speaking I am not attempting to be either. What I am is a layperson who is deeply concerned about the impact that weight gain has on marriages and relationships between the sexes.

I readily admit that I have written Gain Weight… Lose Your Mate primarily from a male perspective since I am a man and I don’t want it to be interpreted as a book that echo the sentiments of all men because it does not. There are many men who have no problem with larger women and that is not an issue for those particular people. I want to emphasize that this book is written primarily for couples within a relationship and has nothing to do with anyone outside of that relationship.

The goal of Gain Weight… Lose Your Mate is to share men’s feelings about the impact of significant weight gain on their overall relationship with their wife or mate. I make no attempt to explore the reasons for weight gain or to argue whether dieting and other factors contribute to weight loss. I further make no attempt to explore the religious, psychological or physiological reasons and theories for weight gain and obesity. There are books and article in abundance in every bookstore, library, newspaper and magazine that give advice or debate those topics .While I may make reference to the aforementioned factors, the primary reason for this book is to discuss the impact of significant weight gain on relationships and the problems that it can cause for all involved.

If this book can save or salvage just one marriage or relationship I will be satisfied that I have accomplished my goal.

I have taken several years to compile the information in Gain Weight… Lose Your Mate and can speak as somewhat of an authority on this topic. All of the stories that I will share with you are based on actual conversations and interviews that I have conducted with people in different parts of the country. I have gone to great pain to not invoke my personal feelings into this book but to provide you with the feelings of the many men (and to a lesser degree some women) whom I spoke with so any reference to ‘I’ does not necessarily refer to my feelings but primarily information received from the interviewees. For the sake of privacy all names, cities, and other references have been changed to protect the innocent. Should there be a story that seems similar to your actual experience consider it to be purely coincidental and genius on my part because surprisingly, most of the feelings expressed here were common to all of the men that were interviewed and it actually got to the point that I could actually finish the statements for the respondent and tell them their next statement before they spoke. In other words I began to see a distinct pattern in the things that men would complain about as well as the actions that they would take to deal with the issues. I concluded that it did not matter what age group, geographic area, race or religious background that I interviewed… when the topic of their mates weight gain came up, the reaction was universal.

In the process of researching information on this topic I was surprised to find such little information on the topic of how weight impacts on a relationship. There are literally thousands of books, articles etc. on diets, weight control and exercise but nothing of a serious nature that touches on the impact of weight gain within a relationship. I have to admit that I was surprised at the magnitude of the problem and the eagerness of men to discuss it when they felt that someone understood how they felt. To many it was as though a burden had been lifted from their shoulders and they were eager for me to finally put in writing what they had been feeling for years

This book speaks for those men who for whatever reason(s) are reluctant to speak for themselves.

There has always been different

Views on how beauty is defined, but to

A husband or mate, beauty is what first

attracted him to his mate

I

A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

I have no idea when men became focused on their wives weight gain and the problems that it creates. However there is evidence that suggests that the issue of weight has not always been as prevalent as it is in today’s society. When looked at over past generations it is clear that thin has not always been ‘in’. At the turn of the 1900`s most women tended to be big boned and somewhat robust. This was based upon the European model whereby women were expected to be larger so that they could help on the farm etc. and needed to have a larger size in order to lift heavy weights and sometime backbreaking work. In some cultures women were expected to be larger. There has always been the perception in the Black community that Black men preferred larger women and Black women generally accepted the fact that they would automatically gain weight as they began to have children and grow older.

Historically Black men did not complain outwardly and this was seen as a carryover from Africa and slavery days where looks was not as important as having a strong mate who could produce as many children as possible to assist with tilling the land and other work on the plantation. After slavery and on into the 1960`s ‘give me something I can hold on to’ and ‘even a dog wants some meat on his bones’ were common expressions heard from men in the Black community.

There were economic reasons as well for this in the Black community since most families could not afford to purchase healthy foods that would not contribute to weight gain. I remember as a child how we would eat salt pork with rice and biscuits as a primary breakfast because we could not afford the price of bacon. There were many other fattening dishes that we ate because we simply didn’t have many choices. Most meals were either high in carbohydrates, fat, cholesterol, or a combination of them all. Unfortunately for many Black Americans that is still true today. It was always a major treat and rare to be able to eat steaks and other high protein meals that were healthier for us as well as tasty. Finally there were medical reasons that were directly tied to the economic reasons. Too often Black Americans could not afford medical care and as a result there were very little preventative measures taken and medical counseling was simply out of the question. This resulted in a higher death rate and many sicknesses that could have been avoided with proper medical care and advice. Sadly not much has changed and Blacks and other minorities still trail Whites in this area.

The Hispanic community faced the same type barriers that the Black community faced in terms of diet, medical services and economics. The Hispanic diet was/is based upon high fat, high cholesterol, and high carbohydrate that tend to equate to obesity over a period of time. Among Hispanics who have entered the mainstream of American business and social status the above factors are not as great. One of the fallacies about Hispanic men is that they don’t mind their mare’s weight gain. This is based upon the mistaken belief that if their mate was bigger they wouldn’t have to worry about losing them to other men. What I have concluded is that this is not standard thought in the Hispanic community. The primary reason for weight gain and obesity in Hispanic society are the same as in the Black community… diet, economics and medical care.

Recent studies show that as new minority groups such as Asians and Middle Easterners assimilate into American culture, once their eating habits change from their traditional meals to more traditional American eating habits, weight issues began to surface among them as well.

It appears that somewhere around the mid 1950`s and with the advent of television and Miss America Pageants that more emphasis began to be placed upon the slimmer, trimmer look. In the early days of television and before it became common to find televisions in almost every home, there was not much emphasis placed on how women female stars looked. The major emphasis was on acting ability with looks being secondary. As companies began to see the benefits of advertising on their bottom line more emphasis began to be placed upon the actresses that represented their products. Sex became the catch phrase for actresses and boom… looks then carried over to the daytime television programs. Long running shows such as SEARCH FOR TOMORROW, THE EDGE OF NIGHT, THE SECRET STORM etc, began to show smaller, petite women who were attractive,