I thought that while Amber is blogging her journey, I'd follow up with posts explaining my part of the discussion.
Regarding the"hubs" story. This is not at all uncommon and I'm so glad Amber shared that changing her own behaviors is going to involve relationship change as well. When you decide to do ANYTHING differently in your life, you create change for others. Understanding the psychology of social change is important for long term success in change of any kind, if you plan to maintain it.
My favorite analogy for any kind of social system, be it a family, work environment, club, church…whatever, is that it is exactly like a pile of pick up sticks. Remember that game? The goal is to gradually remove a stick from a pile without disrupting the structural integrity of the pile.
Before you decided to make changes on behalf of your PCOS, you were a pick up stick in one, two, maybe several different piles. Your attitudes, your routines, and your choices…all supported the structure of those piles of sticks. When you decided to make changes…in essence, you pulled yourself out of the pile, which rendered the structure of that pile a lot more fragile and susceptible to collapse.
The remaining"sticks" in the pile, when you decide to no longer be part of the support, have two choices: (1) they can shift to create a new structure of support, (2) they can pull you back in to your original position to support the old way of doing things.
The knee-jerk reaction in a system where one but not all"sticks" have identified a need to change…is number 2. It's the quickest way to reduce awareness of the nonproductive nature of the system. Get the changer to stop changing, just do things the comfortable way, and we can all live in peace, right?
Bottom line, many of us are in comfort zones where we don't really think too much about what we're doing. Because if we did, how it would feel to be aware of our choices and taking responsibility for them…would totally suck.
(I see it all the time on our Facebook page, anytime I post a statement likely to create awareness that part of the dilemma of PCOS may be due to unproductive personal choices, we lose followers. So why do I keep at it? Because it's at the point of the discomfort of awareness that opportunity for true change is most likely to occur. I fail our fans if I only tell them what they want to hear just to keep our numbers high.)
How many of you allow yourself to be pulled back in to an unhealthy system, just to keep the peace?
Another point of awareness when someone in a system decides to make a change, is that the person who has been identified as the"problem" needing to be"fixed", is no longer allowing that kind of finger pointing to happen. Awareness is created that it takes a village to create, and maintain, unproductive living choices. Systems like this often have one identified person on who all of the problems within the system are channeled into one point of focus. It's so much easier for a family or a group of friends to look at, analyze,"help" a person who is struggling with their weight, than it is to look at some of the less concrete problems with the system.
How many of you allow your weight to be the focus of family conversations?
I've been doing this work for 30 years. It's almost a given part of the process. Someone decides to make changes…they get a"diet" from me, they start to follow it and see success…and then they disappear from my office. If I track them down and chat about where they've been, it almost invariably has to do with not having the energy to push back against the spouse who's bringing home ice cream, the family member who makes a fuss when seconds are politely declined, the friends who are not willing/able to create social activities based on interests other than food.
If your choice is to be alone and healthy…or amongst loved ones and living with PCOS, I can, for the most part, understand, why many of you have trouble changing.
Hang in there. Look at what Amber said. The changes were resisted at first, but hubs eventually came on board and is actually enjoying the process.
Just because the old pile of pick up sticks worked, doesn't mean it was the best way to pile the sticks. I mean, if staying in that pile means you increase the risk of collapsing it altogether because your mortality pulls you out of the pile…for good…in a way that you can no longer be a part whatsoever…
Research shows that people who hang with healthy people are healthier themselves. Maybe the reason the old pile of pickup sticks needs to collapse is so you can create a new one with new players. There's never going to be room for it if you hang on to the old one.
…I think it's worth it to negotiate TV eating, exercising, all the things you need to do for your family as well as you, to keep your system alive and healthy for many years to come.