Guest Post: Bryan!

Hey everyone!
In case you don't know, I'm Bryan, Katie's awesome husband. She asked me if I wanted to write a guest post today and since I'm awesome, I agreed.

You might wonder how Katie's whole weight loss plan has affected me. I have always been a pretty skinny guy. I think I broke 100 pounds in the 7th or 8th grade and have been stuck at the same weight (145 lbs.) since I was 16. That is, until recently. I've gained weight in the last few months and I think I can thank Katie for that. We eat real meals for dinner now. For the first year and a half of our marriage we knew that it was a fancy meal if we pulled out the napkins, and it was a super fancy meal if we actually had a side dish. Now we almost always have a salad or vegetables or some fruit to go with our main dish. But that's not why I've been gaining weight. You might have heard that Katie isn't eating any sweets until April. That doesn't apply to me, you see. But I always feel bad if I eat fatty bad-for-you treats in front of her, so I eat them all when she's not in the room. The problem is that I don't even really enjoy the treats when I do that. Sometimes when she goes to the bathroom I run to the cupboard and cram a few Oreos in my mouth. I then try to erase all the evidence by rinsing my mouth out a few times with water and wiping the corners of my lips, then I run back to the couch and pretend that I have been sitting there the whole time.

I guess the point of that story is that I've been trying to be supportive of Katie's health goals. I know that it's sometimes hard for her to say no to desserts when we have friends over. It's hard to write down every single thing she eats. It's hard to be motivated to go outside on a walk when it's cold and windy outside. So by supporting her by helping her make healthy treats (like cauliflower-laced banana bread), doing her exercise videos with her (my assets are so tight now), and by helping her check the nutritional value of her meals on that My Pyramid website for an hour straight, I feel like I am on a weight loss journey, too ... even though I'm not really losing any weight. I'm OK with that, though. I can still gain about 15 pounds and not be technically overweight. I think walking around campus all day and taking my bike to school helps balance out the Oreos ... or at least slows down their effects.

Moral of the story: be supportive by being aware of what your significant other struggles with. And you might want to practice eating Oreos in 7 seconds without leaving any residue.