I read in a Women's Health once that women who are married or in long-term relationships have a more difficult time keeping their weight down than single women. And contrary to popular belief, the reason given was not because women got comfortable and let themselves go. The reason, according to the article, is that when women live with a man, they tend to eat what he eats, and because men in general need more calories than women, the women gained weight.
I have also noticed that the Marines have changed my guy's eating habits. For starters, he spends a lot of the day in some sort of physical activity. Add to it the fact that they're incredibly busy and do not have time to eat regular meals throughout the day, and he now approaches food much like how I imagine a hunter-gatherer would: if it's there, and available, he'll eat it until it's gone. Another difference that has taken some getting used to for me is that he now eats fast food, which we never used to eat in our former life. During OCS, when they actually were not fed regularly as part of the torture (errr....I mean, training) they were undergoing, the guys would actually immediately head to McDonald's on base as soon as they were secured for 24 hour liberty to scarf down as many Big Macs and French fries as they could before heading back to prison (I mean, the barracks).
When I first heard this new obsession with McDonald's (and Wendy's and Chick-Fil-A, and whatever else is out there), I was very, very surprised. We managed to date for four years and eat most of our meals together in that time, and never once eat fast food before he headed off to OCS (okay, so there was that one time when we decided to drive from Memphis to New Orleans and didn't have time to eat lunch before we left...but seriously, one time in four years). In fact, we had always talked about how much we didn't like fast food, and how unhealthy it was. But, on our drive down to Williamsburg we were hungry, and we stopped at...you guessed it...McDonald's. We also ate dessert on that trip...a lot. I started noticing that now, whenever we are together, he will always order dessert. And I will always eat it. I started panicking, thinking of that article-- is it in my future to gain a ton of weight?
I started to realize that, if the study is correct, Military wives (and wives of other men who work physically-demanding jobs) have it even harder than other wives. If women have the tendency to adopt their partners' eating habits, and Military men are eating anything that's in front of them to make up for all the calories they burn while on the job, then all of a sudden, I can see how it is very easy for Military wives to end up overweight, particularly as the stresses of small children and constantly changing routines are added on.
What do you think? Do you think that the Women's Health article was correct and we should be worried?
