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QI am 35, overweight and trying to lose weight. This isn’t my problem though – my mother-in-law is. She criticises me so often about how fat I am, but whenever we visit her, she ignores my requests that I am only eating healthy food and dishes food laden with fat. Of course, I have to eat it so as not to seem rude. I feel she is deliberately trying to stop me from achieving my goal. How can I get the message across without causing family tension?
AFirstly, let me say I think it’s great that you’re trying to deal with your weight issue. You’re already heading in the right direction. That’s most important and that’s something you have to hold on to at any cost. Keep moving towards your goal and don’t let anyone derail you – especially negative people.
Criticising a person about their weight is totally counter-productive, as you probably know from being at the receiving end. Rather, it drives you back to those food habits you’re trying to break, seeking comfort to soothe emotional upset. I feel that your mother-in-law’s behaviour towards you smacks of something that is running far deeper. Ask yourself, has she always found your relationship with her son difficult? Jealousy can take many forms and her attempts at sabotage might reflect a subconscious desire to undermine you in her son’s eyes, because she feels she has been replaced as the primary person in his affections.
It might also be that she has failed to grasp what you mean by healthy food. Eating patterns in families are often very cemented into the foundations of the dynamics of the family, and people from older generations might find it even more difficult to deal with. I wonder if you’ve sat down with her and really talked her through what you are trying to achieve? You could even start by saying that her comments made you think more about your weight and that you decided to do something about it, thus calmly pointing out to her in the process that you are aware of the games ‘some’ are trying to play. This might well be enough to put her on notice that you are not someone who will take that kind of comment lying down.
Talk her though your weight-loss program and your hopes for the future. Then be very clear about what you can eat and what you can’t, so that if she dishes up something from the latter category, it makes it easier to say, ‘although this looks delicious, it’s not on my healthy food list.’ It’s also worth talking to your husband about the situation. He may be unaware, or he maybe finds his mother domineering too, so it would help if you could stick together on this one.
Whenever you visit, why not also bring a dish that can be shared by everyone that also fits in with your program? This way you’ll always have something to eat and it’s a great way to educate the rest of the family into realising really tasty food can also be healthy. Weight loss is often much more than losing kilos. More often than not, it’s about the gaining confidence to be the person you want to be and standing up to those who say differently! The journey will be hard – but the destination will be worth it.