Problems with the Hen House

I didn't want to write about this last night with Thomas prowling around the house like an angry tiger.

I think I'd mentioned that he'd been having problems all week meeting his point-goals. Not going over, but just getting to them. I checked his Quick Tracker and the closest he's gotten to his point totals was 4, and the most he's missed it by is 8. That's a whole other meal, for me... I was trying hard not to be mad at him about what's essentially not his fault, and I think I was doing a good job, but I did leave those extra points to be his responsibility. (He doesn't cook and he tends to forget to eat for long periods of time before he'll eat a whole box of moonpies... )

Well, apparently that's not going to work.

He was up .4 pounds from last week. Now, honestly, a .4 pound gain really isn't a big deal, but I think it was depressing for him as a first week. Usually it's the first few weeks that things go well, and after a while that things don't go well. Of course, he's not been eating all his points either, so chances are very good that his body went into shut-down/starvation mode.

The meeting for me, which started out good (lost 1.4 pounds!) and got better; won prizes, talked to people, had a good time... for him, started out bad and got worse.

The receptionist handing out the leis handed one to me, then glanced at Thomas. "Oh. Are YOU actually going to be staying for the meeting?" I blinked, confused. Well, I figured that a lot of guys don't stay for the meeting, and she needed to save Leis because they had a lot of people who were new.

Whatever.

We moved up the lines to get our Weigh Ins. Unlike last week, Thomas and I split up... so I missed a lot of the conversation between him and the receptionist.

He was up .4 pounds. He asked the receptionist about this, since he'd been short on points all week, and here he was gaining weight rather than losing it. The receptionist said "Well, make sure you eat all your fruits and veggies... and no, fries don't count as a vegetable." She didn't give him his Week 2 literature and tried to shoo him out of line. He refused to budge. "I haven't been skimping on the fruits and vegetables and I'm having trouble meeting my points anyway. I mean, I don't want to have a cheeseburger just to fill out points." Receptionist: "Well, when you get to 20 points like me, you won't have that problem, will you?"

I heard that last bit and my eyebrows went way up. The receptionist dismissed Thomas from consideration by getting out from behind her desk to greet someone who'd just walked in...

While we were waiting in line, the leader had started up the little Leis game. Thomas pretty much pushed me out of my chair to go play socialite, saying he'd stay with Darcy and make sure she didn't get into trouble, so I didn't really think much about it.

During the meeting, after the game was over, the Leader talked about how her son and her husband were trying to emotionally blackmail her and sabotage her eating, and her son had bought a deep fat fryer for her as a Christmas present and then invited all his friends over and asked her to make chicken wings for them. She made several mocking comments about "husbands" who she often called "shadow members" who didn't actually attend the meetings.

Thomas, already smarting from the weight gain, and the receptionist's dismissal of him, viewed the entire meeting as an exercise in man-hating and was rather grouchy.

So he came home and consoled himself by eating a six point chocolate we had left over from Christmas and ranting for the better part of three hours. Last week, while I was complaining about being hungry and being constantly in a bad mood, he kept saying we had to stick with it for at least ten weeks, and etc. This week, he's talking about turning in his meeting stickers for a pro-rated refund.

I know he's angry and I know he's upset. He hates reverse-sexism and I have to admit that he's very good about not being sexist himself, not even casually. He also tends to notice when other men are being casually sexist and he often calls them on it. But he expects the same respect from women, and a lot of times, it's just not there. Watch commercials for a while if you don't believe me... a lot of commercials are the smart women telling dumb guys about sales, or a product... or the dumb dad is doing something and the mom corrects it...

I've offered my suggestions: I got lots from the Weight Watchers message boards. Adding cheese, adding a protein serving, upping the fat content in his milk, drinking some juice instead of water, etc. I suggested that he join the message board for men, and see what they had to say... I suggested that we continue to browse meetings until we find one that we're both happy with. Finally, I shoved him out the door to go grocery shopping and buy himself some higher points snacks.

We'll see, I guess...