My husband and I got married last year. We dated 1.5 years, and were engaged for just under a year. We're both 30. My husband is the perfect man in many ways, and a serious Christian, which is important to me. He has been struggling with his weight all his life. It's not caused by underlying health issues (he doesn't have depression or other conditions), but more self-control, since he loves to eat well. In his childhood his parents didn't really teach him proper nutrition (despite him gaining a lot of weight in elementary school), so he ate all kinds of junk in college (and a lot of it) so it didn't help that he played football and weight-lifted.

The year before we met in 2022, my husband went on a serious keto/intermittent fasting diet and lost a lot of weight. He is 6'3" and was at his lowest weight when we met (240lbs), worked out every other day, and I was really attracted to him physically. When we started dating seriously, he dropped the keto, started gaining back the weight slowly, working out less. A year into dating he was back at 285lbs. I believe coming up to our wedding he gained even more weight. I was attracted to him as a person but really struggled to be attracted to him physically, as even his face had changed. I felt horrible about this because other than his weight, he truly is the perfect guy for me.

During our engagement, we were abstaining from sex, so his weight gain didn't impact me as much as it does now. Now that we're married, I want to be attracted to my husband physically again like I was when we first met. He has made efforts toward this and lost a little more than 15 pounds in the past 6 months, but his commitment to the weight loss is nowhere as strong as it was before he met me. He DOES want to get fit, both to be healthy (at his current 270lbs, and not that much muscle to compensate, he is considered clinically obese), for his own self-confidence, for our future kids, and to keep the physical spark in our marriage. He just can't seem to stay motivated and on-track during the day-to-day, and it's seriously hurting my attraction for him.

This situation is seriously impacting our love life. I'm a very fit woman (I've been asked if I was a model, and professional athlete, on various occasions) and care a lot about my health, and I want my husband to be healthy, and to be attracted to him. I've tried to help and support him in his journey: cooking homemade meals, develop better eating habits, encouraged him to go on walks together. But, my husband is quite sedentary as a person (despite enjoying a few seasonal activities, like skiing, or hiking if it's in a beautiful location), and doesn't move much during the day. That is not how he was in the first few months of dating, he seemed a lot more active. I try to encourage him to go to the gym more or do longer, more brisk walks, but he often claims that "it's all about the calories, not the exercise", but doesn't stick to his calorie plan either for too long. Usually I end up going for jogs or long walks by myself, even though I always ask if he wants to join. I also do a couple other sports but he doesn't want to join in those either. He has considered going on keto again but he doesn't like it because he gets "keto flu" and his libido tanks on keto.

Does anyone have any advice for this situation, from the RPW perspective? Is there anything else I can do to help him stay motivated? It's so frustrating because even when we met and he was 240lbs, he was much more attractive than now. If he lost even a bit more weight than that, he could literally look like an actor (I'm not exaggerating). I just wish there was a way to help him stay on track toward that, and not doubt himself, as I think he does, which is preventing him from staying motivated.