Why relationships are bad for your health

Our guest writer Louise Robertson casts her eye over relationships, and the link to your waistline…

At the 8 month stage of every relationship, I develop anorexia, sort of… in the way that every time I look in the mirror, all I see is fat!

It’s a familiar rut and is why I believe relationships are bad for your health. You not only develop bad habits but any bad habits that you already have get stuck and it is impossible to shake them off.

Meals
Women need 2000 calories a day and men need 2500 - I’m quite aware of this. Yet at dinner time, our plates look exactly the same. If anything, my steak is slightly plumper… well, I deserve it after all that slaving away in the kitchen!

I have also become a human hoover. As the nominated clearer-upper, each plate has to pass my inspection before being scraped into the bin. Juicy crackling may essentially be a lump of fat, but who cares when it tastes so good? If the other half decides to leave it then it is the clearer-upper’s duty to finish it off.

Then there are the increasingly regular trips to the local all-you-can-eat Chinese takeaway. You can’t sit with an empty plate while your partner goes up for his sixth helping. It is rude… unsociable… damaging to the relationship? Oh ok, I’m just a greedy pig!

It’s not just how much you eat but what you eat in a relationship. I, for one, would like to know why pizza is so bad for you yet so delicious, convenient and easy to share.

And don’t get me started on the curry house. They know our first names, our favourite seat, our order, even our telephone voices! We’ve become a celebrity curry-consuming couple but I’d never have touched a ‘ruby murray’ before I met him. Before he corrupted me with his big greedy man brain!

Smoking
You are desperate to kick the habit. New year, new life, and all that. But your partner refuses to give up with you - worse still, he says it’s because he enjoys it. Torturous words to a hormonal woman with nicotine cravings.
You are stuck rocking in a chair, plastic ‘cigarette‘ in mouth, looking like a nicotine patchwork blanket with nails bitten to the wick whilst, in the corner of your eye, you catch your hubby blissfully puffing away in the garden. Sinfully, the words ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ cross your mind.

Drinking
It all starts in the pub where you order a pint because holding a huge pint detracts from the beer gut you’ve developed over the last few months (note the irony). Before you know it you’re matching his 6ft rugby-playing mates shot for shot.

Then when you leave the relative safety of the pub, BANG! The smell of kebab hits you hard. Had you been out with the girls for a few, classy, measured glasses of wine you would never have followed your nose to ‘Aladdin’s Kebabs.’ Kiss goodbye to your weekly calorie allowance.

Again, it’s all your man’s fault. You don’t need to pull; the legwork was all done months ago. He loves you now so it seems ok to slump on the floor with doner meat spilling down your front with a fluorescent chilli sauce ring forming around your lips.

Beauty
It isn’t just your health that suffers but your beauty too. While the love of your life is out playing 5 a side football you should be using the time to fit in a Pilates class, but do you? Oh no! Because you need to clean the house, wash the dog, do his washing and iron his boxers just the way he likes them. Fake tanning, facials, Brazilians, hair masques - forget it!

Relationships push these essentials to the bottom of the to do list. I have a friend who only shaves her legs three times a year- on her boyfriend’s birthday, Valentines Day and Christmas. From this madness emerges a clear pattern; your identity as a couple has overtaken your importance as an individual… remember that word?

You are never beyond help - you can always save yourself. All you need to remember is that before you were a ‘we’, you were an ‘I’, ‘me’ and ‘my.’ Before you had a man, you only had yourself and your needs, just you and your health.

Don’t deprive yourself, just find a healthier way to have the things you enjoy. Swap a creamy dish at the Indian restaurant for a tomato-based curry with plain boiled rice. Ditch the slippery nipple shots at the bar for vodka and diet coke or gin and slimline tonic.

When the nicotine cravings hit and you find yourself looking longingly at the cigarette sitting in your partner’s hand, ease your jealousy pangs by remembering why you wanted to stop in the first place.

Find yourself again and nurture it. Your health will soon come bouncing back and may even put a spring back into your relationship!

Pic: turtlehawk2002@yahoo.com