Sometimes men want to “encourage” their wives to lose weight and end up doing the one thing that is making it hard for them to lose. They threaten their wives, saying, “If you don’t lose weight I’m leaving you.” It pains me to write those words, but they are words that patients have actually quoted to me.
I’m using the terms “husband and wife” but it’s just as true for any “significant other” dealing with any other “significant other.”
Wilson’s Temperature Syndrome can be thought of as a coping mechanism against stress and starvation. When our livelihoods or resources are threatened, our body temperatures can drop as a means for our bodies to conserve energy. This way, fewer calories are burned and more are stored. Our bodies can hunker down in “Conservation mode,” or in other words, “Storage mode.”
So husbands, if you act like your wife needs to lose weight or else you won’t like her as much, then please don’t be surprised if she gains weight. I’ve seen it over and over again. And, I know that it’s not just over-eating, because I’ve also seen the problem resolved many times over as well. The key is in the temperature.
- When the stress goes up, the temperature goes down
- When the temperature goes down, the weight can go up
- When the temperature is normalized, people can often lose weight when otherwise they struggled.
“Significant Others” depend on one another quite substantially. Sometimes it’s just emotionally, but often it’s physically and financially as well. Anything that threatens our important relationships can be extremely destabilizing. If harsh words and tones are used on a regular basis, even in jest, that alone could leave a person in an almost constant state of destabilization. Those are perfect conditions for gaining all the weight back and then some.
By “harsh words and tones” I mean those words and tones that threaten the value and security of others.
Instead of saying, “If you don’t lose weight I’m leaving you,” a husband could say, “I’ll ALWAYS be here for you whether you lose weight or not, but I think the healthier we are the better.”
Husbands, I suggest that we never say with our words or our tone “You ought to lose weight because I’ll like you better.” Maybe we could say (or maybe not), “I’ll be happy for you when you lose weight because I think you might feel better.” Or, “Let’s lose a little weight because I think it will be healthier for us.”
A person that is valued is going to have an easier time maintaining a normal temperature.
There can be a lot of pretense in relationships. Sometimes we can act like we have the other person’s best interests at heart when actually we are only thinking of ourselves. Truly, actions speak louder than words.
Isn’t it interesting that the words and the tones that you speak to yourself and hear from others can have a real bearing on your weight? Even slight changes in a person’s temperature can have a DRAMATIC effect on his/her ability to lose weight. And, that temperature can be very much affected by emotional stress.
Best regards always,
Denis Wilson, MD
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