How to avoid gaining weight after getting married

To start with, one has to clearly state here that shifting from being single to becoming a person living with a partner under the same roof requires a lot of adjustments in every aspect of life to avoid things to get out the targeted path.

This is due to the fact, that when couples merge households and finances, they have much to discuss e.g. where to spend approaching vacations, when to start a family and how to modify their life-style to prevent two planets to crash with maximum impact thus resulting in extreme and irreparable damage.

One of the main challenges however a lot of couples face when they start to live together, is to stay on the right track when it comes to working out and following a healthy life-style.

In the following article, nutrition consultant and personal trainer Dr. Alhussein El-Shennawy will shed light on some tips how he and his wife Nada did manage to stay fit and lean after the wedding and the honeymoon, without piling on physique deforming pounds on their waistlines.

The first thing one has to point out is the fact, that a lot of people follow a strict and sometimes unhealthy life-style accompanied by grueling hours at the gym in order to catch/impress the partner targeted. This simply portrays the period of being single till the targeted person in question becomes part of a relation or commitment.

After getting married, and when the partner is somehow taken for granted, the energy and fire motivating someone for working out in a hard and a dedicated manner and staying lean, healthy and fit loses a lot of its momentum and driving force.

As a matter of fact, once the wedding pictures are taken and honeymoon is over, there is no motivation present.  This is for a lot of people a valid reason to stop following a healthy life-style and throw the principle of leading by example when it comes to optimum body composition and fitness overboard.

The chief culprit here is very easy to point out :a lot of people mainly link dieting and working out with pleasing another person and gaining his/her attention, instead of applying the rules of living healthy as a bullet proof method to improve their own quality and quantity of time spent on planet earth.

An Australian study revealed the following astonishing facts related to the aforementioned points, when atotal of 350 brides-to-be were asked about their weight.

Within six months of her big day, the average woman gained 4.7lbs (2.1kgs).

Women who lost weight prior to knotting the tie, put on an average of 7.1lbs (3.2kgs) in the first six months of wedded bliss.

One in three brides was asked to lose weight before their big day by their fiancé or a family member.

Those who aimed to lose weight before their wedding set out to shed up to 20lbs (9kgs).

On the other side, brides who felt more pressure to lose weight to squeeze into their white dress gained up to 9.9lbs (4.5kgs) afterwards – almost three times more than brides who were not pressured to lose weight.

Those who aimed to lose weight before their wedding set out to shed up to 20lbs (9kgs).

However, those who managed to lose weight before their wedding put on an average of 7.1lbs (3.2kgs) within the first six months of wedded bliss.

Brides who felt more pressure to lose weight to squeeze into their white dress gained up to 9.9lbs (4.5kgs) afterwards – almost three times more than brides who were not pressured to lose weight.

The researchers said their study provides the first explicit examination of weight both pre and post wedding to determine whether one’s wedding day can be a driver for weight change.

In conclusion, the study revealed, that  post-wedding weight gain was not surprising and was perhaps a result of more relaxed dietary and physical activity habits  that the newlyweds no longer enjoy–as mentioned above-a special event  and wedding photographs for which to motivate themselves.

The study published in the journal Body Image also revealed, that it is equally possible that this weakened motivation for maintaining body weight is due to participants feeling like they have already “snagged” their man and therefore no longer need to work on their appearance.

As long as someone does not work out or follow a healthy life-style for a valid personal reason, he/she are doomed to fail sooner or later.

Another very important thing is that a lot of couples start to sacrifice the gym/exercise time to spend more so-called “quality time” with their spouses. The main question here however is:

Is quality time only limited to munching in front of the TV or going out for lunch and dinner after watching a movie, or can quality time also be spent at the gym? What about taking your wife/fiancée to Zumba/belly-dancing class, while you are pumping iron at the gym or participating in aerobic/anaerobic challenging cross fit class? Is there anything more rewarding than improving the fat-burning furnace, strength and endurance of yourself and your beloved ones?

In addition to this, it must be mentioned here that people in general tend to indulge more calories when they are eating at the theatre/in front of TV, when compared to the quantity ingested when they are eating in places located in remote areas from these weapons of mass distraction.

Last but not least, one has to point out that saying no to a generous offer to take another serving/bite of the wife’s delicious dish, does not mean that the husband in question does not like the food. As a matter of fact, it simply means that he is eagerly planning to look fit and healthy in the wedding pictures of his kids.