Couples weight loss—double the trouble or twice as nice?

By: April Laughlin and the TLS Team

Newly married? Been married for years? Couples who live together tend to gain and lose weight together too due to the shared environment. If you thought it was a strange coincidence, it isn’t! Makes sense, right? You eat your main meals together and people tend to eat more if they are eating with someone else rather than by themselves—like I’m going to cook just for myself, please! As a single man or woman, you want to stay fit in order to attract a suitable mate, but once you’re married, you’re already got a partner hooked and it’s much easier to let yourself go. If you and your hubby/wifey are experiencing a weight problem, then tackle the problem together!

Losing weight as a couple
Alright couples—I have some good news and bad news. Which news would you like first? I always like telling bad news first to get it out of the way so that’s what I’ll do here. Due to biological differences, it tends to be easier for men to lose and keep weight off. Totally not fair! I’ve heard it’s because women need to be healthy enough to bear children—so that even in a famine where everyone is malnourished, we will still have enough weight to reproduce…I’m not sure about that theory, but either way, it’s complete crap!

On a positive note, the good news is that people who try to lose weight together (either with a partner or friend) tend to be more successful than those who go at it alone.  It also helps to know that some of the weight you lose is water and men have a higher concentration of water in their bodies—hence the reason they shed the pounds quicker! So, ladies, if your partner is a man, don’t get discouraged because you’ll see results too!

Quick tip
One thing to make a note of though…don’t set up a bad cop-bad cop situation where one of you polices about dieting and the other about exercising—this could cause problems between the two of you and we don’t want that! It works better if both of you are on the same page and have similar routines.  No matter what your reason may be to lose weight, help each other through the challenge of weight loss. It will be tough and you may want to bite your partners head off, but it will help to realize they are in this with you and only want you to succeed. Keep on encouraging each other!

Tell us: have you and your partner attempted to or successfully lost weight together?