Getting THEM to exercise, too?

[Victory Sabre]

Maybe start with something simple like taking a walk with her. It can be a good way to talk and share your daily events with here, and her you. It's also a decent exercise.

[jedimaster91]

Only speaking for myself here, but I see some similarities. I have a 7 month old and I work outside the home. Between work and the kiddo, I am just physically and mentally exhausted at the end of the day and exercise is the farthest thing from my mind. When there's someone else around to watch Minion, all I want to do is sleep. My diet has gotten pretty bad because I'm going for convenience rather than healthy.

I also struggle a bit with depression. Some of it is postpartum, but looking back I think I've had it all along. It might be worth it for your wife to chat with her doc and see if a low dose antidepressant might help. It's done wonders for me.

And this is going to sound crazy, but getting daylight bulbs for the house has helped a great deal with my crankiness and energy. They're expensive, but worth it.

[AnaKhouri]

I forgot to mention the YMCA. I had a membership for a couple years and it was great. There were all kinds of people there, elderly people who put the treadmill on a crawl, obese people who were just trying to get healthier, college kids, moms like me who were trying to drop the baby weight. I never felt judged because there were so many different kinds of people there, it wasn't just beautiful weight lifters or anything. And I don't know your son but they had swimming lessons and team sports as well as kid exercise classes (where they just played games that involved lots of running around).

Speaking of your son, and sorry if I'm falling for a stereotype, but being homeschooled, does he get exposed to other kids a lot? I've found that if you have a group of children, the combined energy is irresistable and even my lazy kid will run like a maniac. I also trick him into exercising by showing him the stopwatch on my phone and daring him him to time himself running around the house, or see how fast he can go down every slide in the park. He also likes gardening and watering, weeding and mulching can take a lot of work.

[mjr]

So I seem to be having the same issues. I did get my son to exercise for a little bit, but since he likes cats, we called it "pouncing".

Still haven't made progress with my wife on this. She tweaked her ankle recently at a function for my son, so I doubt she's going to be receptive to any sort of "you should exercise" talk until her ankle doesn't hurt.

I know there are probably times when I frustrate the heck out of her. This is something that frustrates me, because it's like she doesn't even want to try.

Though I do recall her mentioning she would do the Tai Chi, but basically I have to learn it, and then teach it to her, because she has "spatial issues".

She really should exercise anyway, because she's older than I am, and she's getting close to "the big M"...

I even encouraged her to buy some iron supplements, so she'd have more energy. She did do that, but she doesn't take them every day.

The most frustrating thing is that it's like she let herself go, and doesn't really even care. But she wants me to eat right and exercise.

[Aria]

Can you get them both addicted to Pokemon Go when her ankle doesn't hurt? You should definitely wait for that to be better though, lol

[EricKei]

A side note, which may not apply in this case: My smallish town (city proper is maybe 25K people) plays host to a small university with its own public-accessible gym and pool. Their fees for pool-access only are MUCH less than "everything" access, so I do the former because of prior back injuries. $20 a month where even the Y is nearly $50/mo plus a $75 initiation fee, plus plus plus (the local country club is cheaper!)...and my insurance reimburses me for that much. If there's a college within reasonable driving distance, it could be worth looking into.

[mjr]

Can you get them both addicted to Pokemon Go when her ankle doesn't hurt? You should definitely wait for that to be better though, lol

We don't have smartphones. I think even if we did, I don't think that particular game would really interest them.

It might interest my son, who also likes Fruit Ninja and Neko Atsume: Cat Collector, but I don't think my wife would really play that particular game.

I'm looking to drop another 13 or so pounds myself, and another 5-10% body fat, based on some research I did. My current goal is to get to 19% or so, and then maybe trim down to around 14 or 15%, if I can.

I really hate to repeat myself, but it's seriously like she doesn't care, and doesn't even want to try. We even have a small aerobic step that she could use. I even told her that if she wanted to do it in the living room, I'd be happy to let her put it on my mat, since our living room has a wood floor.

And she's recently made the statement to me that she "doesn't have time" to actually go to a doctor, really for anything. I even work at home 1 day per week, so she could schedule an appointment for then. On top of it, she's of the opinion that even if the doctors did find something, she wouldn't be able to do anything about it, or she "doesn't want to know".

[mjr]

A side note, which may not apply in this case: My smallish town (city proper is maybe 25K people) plays host to a small university with its own public-accessible gym and pool. Their fees for pool-access only are MUCH less than "everything" access, so I do the former because of prior back injuries. $20 a month where even the Y is nearly $50/mo plus a $75 initiation fee, plus plus plus (the local country club is cheaper!)...and my insurance reimburses me for that much. If there's a college within reasonable driving distance, it could be worth looking into.

Well, there is a small college in a town about 15 miles away. I doubt she'd drive there, though, because she doesn't like to drive. So that means if we did go, I'd have to do the driving. Which means either a late evening trip to a pool I'm not even sure she'd get into, or a trip on a weekend. I don't know if this college has an "open to the public" pool, either.

I know there's a YMCA in that town, too, but I feel like if I signed the family up, it'd be a waste of money. There is actually a small gym in this town, but she doesn't seem interested in doing that, either.

[Aislin]

Do you think she might be depressed? She is resistant to going to a doctor because "they always find something wrong". I'm sure that will be true. Right now the directive of the AMA is to treat weight issues first so the first thing they will tell here is she needs to lose weight. She has body image issues she doesn't want to address and she doesn't want friends. I have been in her shoes and until she decided she need to take responsibility for her health, has a major health scare, or loses function she isn't going to make the changes. I had to go thru surgery to figure out its better to hit the gym and get healthy than suffer the agony of every day. I have lost 22 lbs and am off all my anti anxiety drugs and all I do is an hour at the gym a day. That is 5% of my day I allocate to me and. My health. An hour a day isn't too much to ask, and if you have time to watch tv and play on Facebook you have time to do something active. At one point when I was younger I lost 75 lbs by watching tv and riding an exercise bike. The rule I made for myself was if I wanted to watch tv I had to ride the bike. She needs to choose to make the changes though or they won't happen and she will just resent you for nagging.

[mjr]

Do you think she might be depressed? She is resistant to going to a doctor because "they always find something wrong". I'm sure that will be true. Right now the directive of the AMA is to treat weight issues first so the first thing they will tell here is she needs to lose weight. She has body image issues she doesn't want to address and she doesn't want friends. I have been in her shoes and until she decided she need to take responsibility for her health, has a major health scare, or loses function she isn't going to make the changes. I had to go thru surgery to figure out its better to hit the gym and get healthy than suffer the agony of every day. I have lost 22 lbs and am off all my anti anxiety drugs and all I do is an hour at the gym a day. That is 5% of my day I allocate to me and. My health. An hour a day isn't too much to ask, and if you have time to watch tv and play on Facebook you have time to do something active. At one point when I was younger I lost 75 lbs by watching tv and riding an exercise bike. The rule I made for myself was if I wanted to watch tv I had to ride the bike. She needs to choose to make the changes though or they won't happen and she will just resent you for nagging.

She actually may have some sort of depression. I don't know all the signs, but I do know at one point in her life before she met me, she did go through a period of some sort of mental issue (I don't know all the details), but at one point she was told by a doctor to actually go out and meet people. That's actually kinda how we met.

I'm not going to go into the "she seems happy", because I know that people that suffer with depression can indeed appear happy. She also thinks she may have mild Asperger's (undiagnosed), but we don't know for sure.

I do have to wonder if some of this has to do with the possibility that she's getting close to "the big M". She's 6 and a half years older than I am. And I'm almost 40.

I really try not to nag her at all about this, but I'm putting in effort to get myself healthier and to get in better shape, and that's the frustrating part to me.

I love her, and I don't want to see anything bad happen to her. I made good decisions, because she wanted me to, and I love my family, and want to be around them for a long time. I want her to do the same.